How We Do Burger Night

We grill burgers at least once a week all summer, and a couple of times a month the rest of the year. Grilling is not a season at this house. It is a method, and it runs from January to January.

Burger night isn’t a recipe. It’s a routine, and it works because both of us know our part and neither of us has to ask.

Zach lights the grill

I want to be clear that I have lit that grill more times than I can count. I taught him the technique. He has since become genuinely better at it than I am, which is how teaching is supposed to go and which I am handling with tremendous grace.

He lights it because it lets us run two jobs at once. He’s out on the deck getting the fire where it needs to be; I’m inside starting prep. If he’s not around, I light it and prep after. The division isn’t sacred, it’s just efficient.

I make the patties

Somebody gave us a burger press years ago and I remember thinking it was a deeply ridiculous object. A tool that does one thing, and that thing is pressing meat into a circle, which is a task my hands have been capable of my entire life.

Reader, I use it constantly. (This is the one, if you want your own: Amazon | Home Depot.)

Not because it makes better burgers. It makes consistent burgers, which turns out to matter more than I expected. Same diameter, same thickness, same weight, so they cook at the same rate and finish at the same time. No standing over the grill pulling one and waiting on another. If you cook burgers with any regularity, that’s the whole argument, and I owe somebody an apology.

The beef is 88/12 from Costco, out of a ten-pound pack. Most of it gets vacuum sealed and frozen the day I buy it; a pound or so stays out for burger night. There’s no special butcher in this story and no artisanal grind. There’s a warehouse store and a vacuum sealer and a freezer, and honestly that’s a bigger part of how we actually eat than any single ingredient is.

Burgers first, and then something else

The burgers go on first, and then something else goes on right behind them.

Here’s the reasoning, such as it is. Lighting a kamado isn’t hard and it doesn’t take long. But it’s still work, and the coals stay hot for a good while after you’re done with them. Spending all of that on fourteen minutes of beef patties feels criminal.

So there’s always a second thing. Sometimes a third and a fourth. Sometimes it’s Zach’s chicken tenders for the week (that’s its own post, and it’s coming). Other nights it’s vegetables, or something that wants a little smoke, or whatever is about to turn in the fridge.

The rule isn’t what goes on second. The rule is that something does, and that the fire gets used up before it goes out.

The buns go on too, for the last minute, right on the grate. A toasted bun holds up to everything you’re about to pile on it; an untoasted one gives up halfway through dinner.

Remy supervises

Remy’s bed is out on the deck right next to the grill. That’s not an accident and it’s not my doing; that’s where he decided it goes.

He keeps me company the entire time. He’s also, at all hours, formally available to serve as a taste tester should any burger require evaluation.

To date, no burger has required evaluation. Not one. Every single burger has been fine, and he has been informed of this outcome many times.

Hope lives in a pupper’s heart, though. He remains ever hopeful.

Then I stage the kitchen

While the grill’s working, I set up the assembly line inside.

Sliced tomato, red onion, and lettuce. Dijon, specifically, not yellow mustard; we go through enough of it that there is a gallon of it in my refrigerator.

A1, because we’re both A1-on-a-burger people and I am not interested in being talked out of it.

Pickles, which are Grillo’s. I buy the big containers at Costco, and when they’re out of the spicy ones it’s a genuine sadness.

Cheese is a per-person decision here. Zach’s a yes; I’m a sometimes. This round it was extra-sharp cheddar all the way down the board. Nobody negotiates this and nobody comments on it.

And then whatever the side is, which this time was cole slaw and sweet potatoes cut steak-fry style. That’s the part that flexes. Sometimes it’s potato salad. Sometimes it’s watermelon or a fruit salad and nothing else, because it’s ninety-four degrees and nobody wants a hot side dish.

The burgers stay. The sides move. That’s the whole system, and it’s why this never gets old: same dinner, different dinner, every time.

Everybody builds their own

Nobody assembles anybody else’s burger in this house. You come to the counter and you build what you want.

Zach has two. I have one.

And the slightly more (ahem) crispy one is mine, because that’s how I like them and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise. If a patty comes off with a hard dark edge on it, that one has my name on it before it hits the board.

Then there’s a patty or two left over, which somebody eats for lunch the next day standing up at the counter, and which I’d argue is the best burger of the batch.

P.S. Yes, I mocked the burger press. Yes, I use it every week. Character growth.

P.P.S. If you’re an A1-on-a-burger person, you already know we’re a persecuted people. Comments are open. Stand with me.

P.P.P.S. Remy would like the record to show that he has never once been given the opportunity to confirm the burgers are fine, and that he considers this an ongoing oversight rather than a settled matter.

P.P.P.P.S. Sharp-eyed folks will notice the grill in the patties-on photo sits a lot lower than the one with the buns. That’s the old setup. I forgot to get a wide shot of the whole process on the new grill, but it doesn’t matter: the process is the same no matter how high the grill sits.