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" Artisanal merguez, oysters, Mexican street corn \u2014 sure, as the summer wears on, you may find yourself making the occasional foray into these more exotic reaches of grilling territory. But your mainstay, your utility player, is and always will be a classic, no-frills hamburger. When it comes to grilling, the burger is most essential. As such, there&amp;#039;s no such thing as too much good advice for improving your technique. So, in the spirit of easing you back into the season, we sought the counsel of Matt Jennings, chef at Providence&amp;#039;s Farmstead &amp;amp;amp; La Laiterie, inventor of the Pig Mac, three-time winner of roving pork spectacular Cochon 555, and two-time James Beard Award nominee. Jennings knows a thing or two about crafting an ideal patty, and we&amp;#039;ve captured all of his most essential wisdom below. \u2014Elizabeth Gunnison Always go for the cleanest meat you can find, which, in a lot of cases, is going to mean local, humanely-raised, grass-fed. Farmers&amp;#039; markets are a great place to look. Your local butcher can definitely source it. So that&amp;#039;s first and foremost: good, healthy meat. The best burgers are made from trim. The chefs that are making these burgers with part short rib, part chuck, part brisket? I see it as a marketing tool more than anything. Every animal is different. The only ratio that matters is the fat-to-lean ratio. Your burgers should be between 26-33 percent fat. End of story. Set up a healthy relationship with a butcher you trust and tell them that you&amp;#039;re looking for beef scraps. You&amp;#039;ll need to anchor that mix with something, and I recommend chuck roll. It&amp;#039;s the top of the chuck, and it tends to have more fat to it. Use that as your base and add in the trim. I don&amp;#039;t want a burger that&amp;#039;s so finely ground that you lose all the texture and juices. I want a little chew and body. So, if you&amp;#039;re grinding your meat at home, set your grinder on the biggest setting. Or, better yet, you can rough-mince burgers by hand. That makes the best burger. Hand-chopping is the shit. Find yourself a really good, sharp knife and a tough cutting board and go at the meat, chopping until you get to a pebbly texture. You&amp;#039;re going to break a sweat, but once you&amp;#039;ve had a patty made that way, you can&amp;#039;t go back. We do an eight-ounce patty at La Laiterie \u2014 half a pound. No secrets to forming it besides not to handle it too much. And put a little dimple in the middle so that when it cooks on the grill, the natural juices don&amp;#039;t turn it into a softball, which will happen if you don&amp;#039;t make the dimple. Put your patty on a searing hot grill, season the heck out of it with Kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Then just don&amp;#039;t touch it. You&amp;#039;re looking at 2-3 minutes per side for medium-rare. And don&amp;#039;t smash it into the grill with a spatula \u2014 seeing that makes me sad. With any good meat, I let the burger rest. All the beautiful blood inside will be able to redistribute evenly. At the restaurant, we rest our burgers on all our leftover herb stems. I also love pork burgers. We have a special here called the Pig Mac. It&amp;#039;s a huge hit, so I can only offer it now and then, because people get rabid. It&amp;#039;s pork shoulder mixed with beef fat trimmed from our dry-aged steaks. For toppings, the sky&amp;#039;s the limit. We&amp;#039;ll put house-made bacon on our burgers and pull cheeses from our cheese shop that can range from stinky washed-rind cow&amp;#039;s milk to Camembert-style to French blue. My favorite burger cheese right now is Big Ed&amp;#039;s, a creamy, rich, mellow-flavored cheese from Wisconsin. It&amp;#039;s an incredible melter. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong \u2014 there&amp;#039;s definitely a place for a burger with American cheese on a Wonder Bun. But don&amp;#039;t limit yourself. And you definitely need some acid to help cut all that fat. Pickles are great. Ketchup. Relish. Maybe a hot mustard, too. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a14390/matt-jennings-burger-tips-9535633/>