Who Makes The Best Fast Food Burger? Takeout vs Pro Chef

Oh yeah, you definitely want

to open up a [beep] window when you do this at your crib.

[jazzy music]

[typewriter typing]

Take one. [laughs]

Oh, still nice and warm.

Burgers.

Oh yes, I know this one.

Looks like fast food burgers, man.

You only got a couple of dollars in your pocket.

This is the way to go, right here.

Oh, classic.

Sesame seed bun. Looks smashed.

It doesn't look cooked to a temperature,

so that looks good.

Pickles, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce.

Cheese, classic.

The first thing I noticed is the quality of beef.

They grind their own or it's their like, own special blend

because it's really pronounced, you know?

Yeah, that tastes really good.

My old friend, McDonald's.

My first, first job in America,

when I came to the US, was 1999,

out of the McDonald's on 34th Street and Eighth avenue.

It's still there, by the way.

And McDonald's really taught me

about the restaurant business.

This is the Quarter Pounder with cheese.

It's the Royale with cheese.

But it's McDonald's, you know what I'm saying?

It's always the same. Super consistent.

It comes with a little bit of pickles, ketchup,

and cheese.

And so, let's check it out.

I mean, it's a McDonald's burger.

Patty's dry as [beep].

The first thing I really taste is the bread.

For some reason, the bread is seasoned really well.

If you wanna talk about a really efficient restaurant

that really makes money off of food that they sell.

There's systematic things in place where, you know,

everything is portioned out.

Everything's already ready to go.

There's timers everywhere.

Really makes it that every patty,

every burger, every sandwich comes out the same.

But if you have one of these burgers, you already know.

It's fulfilling, it's easy, it's fast.

And it's McDonald's, man.

You can't go wrong with them, you know what I mean?

I'm a little biased on this one

because I think it's the best burger in the city, right?

It looks like Shake Shack.

It looks like a Shake Shack burger, right?

But the bun is a potato bun,

which is an amazing vessel for burgers.

Yeah.

The best part is the meat.

It's the first thing that comes into play first.

Pat LaFrieda's like, one of their main source of the meat.

Pat LaFrieda has almost kind of monopolized the meat market,

here, in New York city.

Their quality of meat is not only affordable,

but they can also give you any cuts you want, you know?

And then the biggest meat provider, here, in the East Coast.

The sauce that they have on top, there,

really gives it a little bit of sweetness.

So I'm thinking it's like a ketchup mayo mix.

I think that's what the sauce is.

The classic burger.

And I like these like, soft,

sweet potato bun rolls, you know?

All right, to make the perfect burger,

I'm gonna focus on four things.

The meat, the bun, the cheese, and the toppings.

The meat needs to be, you know, chosen well.

The 80/20 rule on the meat itself.

And you gotta season your stuff, man,

and you gotta choose the right cuts

to make your burger blend.

And then, you know, you gotta make sure

that our cheese is American,

as it really goes well with meat and burgers.

The American cheese is a little bit of a milder end, right?

But it has this kind of funk to it,

towards the back end of the flavor profile, so.

When I did burgers at restaurants,

I only did American cheese, you know?

And then for the toppings, you know,

you gotta have the staples.

Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles.

We're gonna make a sauce.

The bread itself, you know,

it has to be soft enough that you can bite through it

and then it can hold the sandwich itself.

But also, it has its own kind of structure to it.

It's, you know, something that I feel like you would get

when you go to like, a barbecue with somebody's crib, right?

There's no frills, nothing else going on.

And I think that's how a burger should be.

I mean, I'm a purist in that sense

and if you're gonna do a burger right,

you gotta make sure that all of those things are in place.

[jazzy music]

All right, first, our grinders.

I need to keep it in the freezer to keep it cold,

so we're gonna grab it right here.

So you keep all of these pieces cold,

so when you grind your meat, it stays loose.

It doesn't emulsify if it gets too hot,

and it also stays fresh, okay?

All right, next,

we're gonna go ahead and grab our produce and our meats.

We got some butter to toast up our bread, today.

We're also gonna do,

I like romaine hearts for our burger.

It gives it a little bit more snap.

I'm gonna go with the American.

And then our beefs.

Think we're gonna go with a short rib.

One piece of short rib, and we're gonna do chuck.

The chuck and the short rib mix is a classic mix.

And also, short rib is gonna give you

that kind of fat that you're looking for.

And usually, for the blend,

you really try to look for an 80/20 blend.

So 80 lean meat, 20% fat.

So, I think short rib is gonna give you that,

and then the chuck is gonna give you that, you know,

meatiness that you're looking for in a burger.

For some reason, I like red onion for burgers.

I just like that spice.

Obviously, we're gonna do a tomato situation.

I'm gonna grab a thing of garlic just

to maybe grate into our sauce.

And I think I'm just gonna go with something

that I'm very familiar with.

It's a King's Hawaiian bun.

It's sweet, soft. It's pillowy, almost.

Super nice.

If you can get this, use this, all right?

[jazzy music]

All right, cool.

So we're gonna go ahead and grind our meat,

make our perfect patties.

Yeah, so there's the short rib.

This is kind of a nice, fatty piece of the meat.

This doesn't get that much movement in it.

It has a lot of fat striations on it, as you can tell,

and it's just a good mix for burgers.

A lot of people use this cut.

And then you always wanna keep ice in the bottom of this

to keep your meat chilled,

so it doesn't oxidize on you and get ruined.

It turns up a great color.

And this chuck, it's kind of like the shoulder piece.

It's a lot more meaty.

Gonna use this much. Just eyeball it.

We at the crib, you know what I mean?

We at the crib.

There's been like, a discussion for a long time

in the food industry.

It's like, what's the best ratio?

Some people like a 70/30, 70% lean and 30% fat, you know?

It's really about your preference and what you like.

Well, I like 80/20 because there's still structure

in the meat itself when you put it on the grill.

You need that fat in there sometimes to keep it moist

and also, just give it an extra layer of flavor, you know?

I mean, if you don't have a high quality grinder at home

and you wanna, you know, make a burger,

you can go to your local butcher shop,

and you can tell them you want an 80/20 burger blend.

What you're really looking for is some fatty content to it.

The meat is red and it looks fresh

and it looked like it's just been grinded that day.

We're gonna go ahead and make our special sauce.

It's gonna be a riff of a Big Mac sauce.

It's a simple, simple, simple sauce.

You're gonna need some French dressing, mayo.

I'm going to micro grate some garlic in there.

Relish, and just a touch of ketchup

to give it a little bit more bounce and color.

I might need a little bit of salt.

I might need a little bit of pepper,

just to make sure that our product is very much seasoned

and is put well together.

It's gonna be a little sweet, a little tangy.

Think it's gonna be bangin' anyways.

Yeah.

It's a Big Mac sauce, right there.

So I like to use romaine lettuce.

I like to trim them a little bit to just fit the burger

and the kind of bread that we're gonna be using today.

I press down to kind of break the spine, here, a little bit

'cause it's just kind of like, in a V-shape.

And then this becomes like, a nice platform

when you start building your sandwich.

Next, a little tomato.

Tomatoes, obviously, I just like to do them in large rings.

Not too thick, yeah?

Because it gets messy if it's too thick.

And then for onions,

I like to do the same shape as the tomato.

Here it is.

Simple veg prep, but at the end of the day,

it's fresh and you'll have the best burger.

As you can tell, we've kept our meat on ice this whole time

and look how beautiful red it kept.

About four ounce patties.

Yeah.

All right, so if you don't have a scale,

this is about the size you want it, right here.

So we're gonna do maybe four patties for our sandwich.

As you can see, the fat is well incorporated.

Our meat still has a great, reddish color.

I mean, this is gonna be a tasty burger,

but I can tell already.

All right, so yeah, so we have a cast-iron griddle.

It's screaming hot right now, as you can tell.

Burger's gonna get a nice sear from this.

Any one of these pressers is Lodge Cast Iron pressers.

Gonna put a little bit of oil on this now for later,

so when we press down, the burger doesn't stick, all right?

Pour a little bit over here for our patties, okay?

And I'm gonna season them when they get smashed, all right?

Cooking on the grill, you can't really do a smashed burger.

You need a flat top to do it on, okay?

It gives it a great flavor profile to it.

As you can tell,

the burgers are getting a nice sear over here,

so we're gonna go ahead and smash it.

And the reason why I use a Smashburger is,

it's a lot easier for people to do it

at their home instead of trying to do temperatures.

You know, sometimes if the patty's too big,

you're gonna try to get to mediums

and it takes too long.

But a Smashburger, you got a lot more flavor

and also, you get to, you know,

enjoy the burger a lot quicker.

All of that cheese and all those sauces are gonna seep

in right into the burger, okay?

And flip it.

Now you got a nice cross right here from the burger itself.

And I'm gonna go ahead and put the cheese, just let it melt.

So while that's happening,

I'm gonna go ahead and toast the bread.

I have this whole side off already for our bread.

A little quick toasty toast.

Nothin' too crazy.

Nice toast, right there.

I'm gonna start taking this off

now that the cheese has melted.

We'll put it right on our burger and our patties.

That's it.

[trumpet sounding]

All right, cool.

So next, what we're gonna do is,

I'm gonna put a little bit of that burger sauce right

in the middle of this joint, right here.

And for this size of burger,

I think we're just gonna do one pickle.

Yep, and then we're gonna go ahead and, one leaf of lettuce.

Couple of onions, and then tomato.

We're gonna put it right over the top, yeah.

So we have little patties with cheese, American cheese,

tomato, onion, lettuce, and a Hawaiian bun.

[jazzy music]

We're gonna be tasting our takeout

to what I just made, a double stack burger.

Here on the right is my favorite burger

out of the whole takeout selection.

I picked, obviously, the Shake Shack burger

because it's the best burger in the world.

Please sponsor me.

Okay, cool. First, elbows out, all right?

Elbows out, far away from your shirt

so they don't drip, okay?

Rule number one, all right?

Mhm!

Here's a great example of a Smashburger.

You know, the bun is very much well toasted.

For them, they don't really smash it all the way down.

They kind of smash it halfway.

They cook it to almost medium.

It's a great way to really send the burger out,

then I think they send it in a wax paper situation in a bag.

Mmm.

The Big Mac sauce, it's a little bit more prominent

because I put on a lot.

If they put more of that Shake Shack sauce on there,

I think this would have been,

basically, the same sandwich, huh?

The bun, here, is just a touch sweeter,

so you can just taste that.

And the toast of the bun, right here, you know,

it makes a big difference, right?

It creates another layer of like,

these Beurre Noisette kind of flavor profiles.

And yeah, you know, you just wanna have your buns toasted

and hot and warm.

Tomato gives it a freshness.

I love the red onions.

It gives a sandwich another element to raw, red onion.

[finger smack] Super nice.

It has a little bit more structure, I think.

So it's like, when you chew into it,

you can still feel the burger patty itself in there.

Maybe it's because there's two patties in there.

There's a lot more meat.

But when I've bit into the Shake Shack one,

we kind of just, you know, dissipated a little bit.

So yeah, so we had a chance to go taste three burgers

from three iconic places, here, in New York city.

We went ahead and grinded our own meat,

put our Mise en place together and made our own sauce,

cooked it, put it together less than 15 minutes.

That can go up against a great Shake Shack burger.

If you have the time and you have the place,

go ahead and do your own thing at your house.

As always, it's your boy, Chef Harold, AKA Uncle Harold.

Bon Appetit, South Bronx all day.

See you on the next one.

[bell sounding]

Peace.

[jazzy music]

Is there cookies baking right now?

[Producer] Yeah.

[Harold laughing]