How George Motz Makes NYC’s Best Burgers at Hamburger America | Made to Order | Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit joins burger scholar Chef George Motz, owner of Hamburger America, to see how the best smash burgers in NYC are made. Smash burgers got their name from the technique of smashing patties on a hot griddle to lock in flavor and create a crispy crust. Motz demonstrates how he makes The Chester, Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger, and his classic smash burger, which have made Hamburger America one of the most talked about burger spots in New York City.

00:00 Intro
00:38 Classic smash burger
05:55 Oklahoma fried onion burger
08:38 The Chester

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[upbeat music] – I am George Motz and
this is Hamburger America. And today, I’m gonna make
you three different versions of what I consider to be some
of the best smash burgers. [bell ringing] Smash burger is the
original American hamburger. We call it a smash burger today as a way to define the method
and how it’s being made, which means it’s being smashed. The best smash burgers are the ones that are made simply with
only a few ingredients. Beef, cheese, bun, and a
seasoning of some sort. That’s it. That’s all you need, really. Four perfect ingredients with
method applied correctly, makes the perfect smash burger. [upbeat music] Now the grill, hot flat top. This is worth cooking
at about 360 degrees. Well, if you’re cooking at home, the best way to do is
cook it in a cast iron pan inside your house with good ventilation. Some pretty basic rules to
making a good smash burger. One, is obviously, the beef. We use 75/25 ground chuck. It’s pretty fatty, fat is flavor. You can see from the blend
that it’s pretty pink. It’s like strawberry ice cream, which means that the
muscle fibers and the fat are blended perfectly together. Almost like sausage meat, red muscle fiber mixed with
big white chunks of fat. You can’t smash that, it’s not gonna work, ’cause all that fat will render out and turn into a sort of a
dried out Swiss cheese patty. If you grind say twice with your butcher or you have a grind that looks
like it’s blended together and it’s pink, for example, it’ll be the perfect beef for smashing. So, we use about three
and a half ounces of beef. One of the best ways to portion beef is to use an ice cream scoop. There actually are things called, they’re called salad dishers that are look like an ice cream scoop. They have a a trigger on the side. It’s been sitting here for a minute. You can then turn the ball over. Look at that, the cooked
patch on the other side, about 20 seconds. And that prevents from sticking here. You’re pressing it on the flat top and you’re defining where it’s
going to go by pressing it. And because it’s round already, if you go straight down, apply pressure, you end up with a ball that
turns into a round patty. Don’t go and flip it
and press it some more or don’t keep pressing it. Wanna make sure that’s all
that’s gonna happen now. Some of the rendered fat is out already and it’s becoming part of this
sort of a hamburger confit. It’s right there using a fancy term for a not so fancy thing. This is a Lowery seasoned salt. It’s a little bit, not much, a tiny bit. I think it’s salt,
garlic, turmeric, pepper. If you season your beef before, there’s a tendency that for
the meat to sort of seize up and get kind of hard. So, you don’t wanna do that before. you wanna do it as you’re cooking, ’cause it’s a science experiment. All this stuff is
happening at the same time. The only people who actually, ate hamburgers in the very beginning were factory workers
who had to eat quickly and get back to work. And so, they realized that by smashing a ball of beef on a flat top, it made it cook faster. It’s a visual thing to know when to flip. The bubbles will starting to come through, the rendered fat is now
tries racing to the surface. It’s trying to get away from the heat. Sharp scrape tool. You’ll watch the pink change slightly. You still want pink before you flip. If it’s fully gray, you’ve
overcooked it already. Then keep an eye on that. American cheese. American cheese is designed to melt. Also for speed, cheese is not gonna melt the way you want it to until you cover it. Covered cheese melts faster. This is a professional melter. It’s called a melter. But you can also use a bowl. A bowl or even a pot
cover will work just fine. We use Martin potato rolls, ’cause they’re just a little denser. That’s the bun toaster. There you go. Oh, perfect. I’m anti-brioche, because there’s
too much sugar in the bun. You know, whenever you
take a bite of the burger, you wanna get some yeast in there like it’s a piece of bread,
not a like a donut, you know? Whenever you take a bite of a burger, the first thing you actually
smell is not really beef. It’s actually, the yeast
from the top of the bun, ’cause the bun is hitting you in the nose, hitting your nose. You’re smelling yeast first,
and that’s very important. Yeast is a very complex element and your brain desires those complexities. The ultimate, all the way. Mustard, not much, just a little bit. Put two pickles on every burger. We use a dill pickle and onion. Not much, a little bit. The MOP, this is mustard, onion, pickle. No, ketchup. No. You can put ketchup on if you want. Just I don’t wanna put it on my burger. It’s on the bottom. Also, people ask, why is it on the bottom? Why is it not on the top? Because that allows us to
prepare the buns ahead of time so you can, it’s called doping the buns. You can dope the buns ahead and just drop patties on them. We’re doing a lot of volume. It’s much easier to do it that way. The bun is ready to go. All you have to do is
drop the pad on top of it. We do the classic fold and twist. There you go. The method is based on speed, just to be able to get it done, but it inevitably
accidentally created a burger that is beloved for over a century. Oh, tasting America, tasting history. [upbeat music] Okay, next we’re gonna do the burger that made me somewhat famous. This is the Oklahoma fried onion burger. Same size ball of beef, everything. This time though instead we salt the ball. Also, we salt the surrounding area. Paper thin cut onions go in here. We have a secret slicer in the basement. Only way to make the onion burger is to use super, super
thin onions like that. And we have a very special
machine that does that, which is right over there. But I’m not gonna show you. It’s very special. If you’re in the business,
you already know what it is. I know. Fine. We use sweet onions, because
they caramelize faster, ’cause of the high sugar content. Also, you can almost eat it like an apple, if you’re had it in your
hand, it’s very, very sweet. One burger gets about that much. So, it seems like a
lot, but it cooks down. Onions lose their moisture,
and when they caramelize, they shrink and they
become more concentrated. If you need to get the
onions this thin, good luck. A mandolin is set to the
the thinnest you can go. It’s probably the best thing you can do for a home slicing of onions. In fact, it’s the Japanese mandolins, which can get down to the
thinnest possible setting. The French ones won’t do it. Sorry. Wash your fingers please. It’s very dangerous. During the workman’s shop strike of 1922, everybody was outta work
in El Reno, Oklahoma. So, enterprising young man decided to take the same
volume of beef to onions and press the onions into the
burger to see what happened. And he was just trying to extend his beef supply for the day. And what he ended up with was
inventing an incredible burger that we still make 100 years later. Unlike the smash burger,
which cooks very quickly, the onion burger is a slow cooker. It takes patience and it takes time. We’re gonna sear the
side that we press down and then we’re going to flip it over. So, the onions are now hiding underneath and they caramelize with the beef tallow or the rendered beef fat. As the rendered fat goes
down, the heat comes up, onions are caught in the middle of that. The onions are now part of a combination. This transfer of heat and beef tallow over and over and over and
over again until they give up. The moment when the onions give up is the moment when they taste the best. Cheese. Normally, if you’re in
Oklahoma, there’s no cheese. I mean they do put cheese on, if you want, but that’s like the younger generation. If you’re under 60 for example, that’s the younger generation. So, this bun does not get toasted. It goes right on top of here. This a science experiment’s happening. It’s steaming. It’s what I call beef steam. It’s also a great name for a band. [George chuckling] I do a thing which I’ve never
seen them do in Oklahoma, where I actually, I gather the onions and put ’em underneath so they don’t burn. And I start to check, I can
actually see what’s going on now or get in there. They’re not quite there though. It’s actually pretty hard to overcook the burger at this point, because the onions act as an insulator. Prevents us from overcooking
the burger patty itself. So, it stays very moist. Here we go. Let’s give it up. See that? Whoa! Surrendered. Look at that sweet surrender. That’s it. See that? There’s no more white in there. You don’t see the, I mean onions are, just by comparison. See that? Look at that. So, here we go. Very important part of this burger. Something called the pinch and pull, which is just done for speed. You put the heel, which is now
on top, is now on the bottom. Basically, pinch the whole
thing together gently, and you pull it off. That’s it. We serve this one with two pickles, but the pickles don’t go on the burger. The pickles go next to the burger. You’re supposed to eat them,
while you’re eating the burger. You can’t see the onions. People say, “That’s not an onion burger. I don’t see onions.” Like, “Oh dude, they’re in there.” [George chuckling] It’s a very unique flavor. When you take rendered beef fat and you cook onions in that fat, you end up with something
that is very, very unique, especially to the hamburger world. [upbeat music] Okay, next, the Chester,
my hometown Burger. Burger I grew up with. Think of American cheese,
white bread grilled cheese, with butter, with a
hamburger patty inside, I know you’re thinking patty
melt, not a patty melt. This is a Chester. The patty melt is invented
in San Francisco in the 1930s by a guy named Tiny Nailer. So traditionally, a patty melt
is rye bread, Swiss cheese, grilled onions with a patty inside. That’s a patty melt. Everything else is just
a hamburger on toast. This is a Chester. This was invented by a bunch
of drunk teenagers in 1973, [George chuckling] ’cause they didn’t have buns. It’s as simple as that. They came home from the bar. They were looking for
something good to eat. Let’s make cheeseburgers. Oh, we don’t have any buns. [George chuckling] So, they put it on bread,
they put it on toast. Same burger, same smash. [burgers sizzling] And this is the way it’s
been made for over 50 years. You know, seasoning this type of salt. They use salt on the Chester. What they do, what they’ve
done for half a century, toast. Now, this is the critical part. Right on the flat top, rendered butter. And for speed, melters,
melter covers. There you go. Once this patty is cooked, it’s just gonna go into the
grilled cheese, and that’s it. Super fast on there. And you can burn this pretty easily. Keep in mind you’re making
two different things. You’re making a burger
and a grilled cheese. Grilled cheese inherently cooks at a lower temperature and a smash patty cooks
at a higher temperature. It should be. So, you need to separate those two things and add the patty to a
grilled cheese environment as opposed to just try to create everything in
the same environment. It’s very important. This is the burger I grew
up eating at the beach. I grew up running down the beach to get these when I was a lifeguard. It’s an off menu burger. You won’t find it on the menu, but if you come in and ask
for it, we’ll make it for you. The greatest thing about this burger, you know exactly what
it’s gonna taste like. No question about it. Actually, it might taste better
than what you might think. Nice, crispy outside. Cheese is perfectly melted. The burger’s not too thick. I never get tired of this. And people come back to this
restaurant all the time, you know, they know it’s gonna
be a good tasting burger, because they know that’s
gonna make them feel good. Burgers make you happy, and happiness is healthiness,
as far as I’m concerned. [upbeat music]