Why You Can't Make The Best Cheeseburger In NYC At Home

My name is Jae Lee, chef and owner of Nowon.

and this is our legendary cheeseburger.

This is everything that I did in our restaurant kitchen

that you can't replicate at home.

We can't talk burgers unless we talk beef.

In the streets, beef is a bad thing,

in the restaurant beef is a great thing.

We make a thousand burgers a week

a thousand burgers a week, and this is how we get the meat

the blend of chuck round and sirloin

75 to 25 meat to fat.

You can't order beef like this for your home

but for the restaurant, we can.

We have a good relationship with our meat distributor.

They made a blend specific to our needs.

Every patty weighs the same.

It's pretty portioned

and it's easy to separate when an order comes in.

We need consistency, efficiency,

and delicious, deliciousy.

This blend specific for us at this size, packaged like this

you won't be able to find.

Our burger at the restaurant, Nowon

is a double cheeseburger.

Realistically, when order comes in, we're cooking

like eight orders at a time

and most home cooks don't have a flat top

or a griddle like this.

This is what makes smash burgers work in restaurants

because you need consistent heat in the surface area

so you can cook a lot of patties at once.

Most home cooks won't have this at home.

If you're a home cook

and you want to create a double cheeseburger

you can't probably cook more

than like one double cheeseburger at a time,

maybe two at most.

So order comes in, boom.

Two burgers are right here.

This one's a little broken.

That's fine.

Look, I want to just smash it up a little bit.

We're gonna smash it anyway.

Press it using the burger press.

We use this on every patty that hits the griddle, smash

and get that Maillard reaction

creating that beefy flavor in the burger.

Now the second part of the beef is the seasoning.

We make a custom blend to amplify the umami flavor.

I can't tell you what's exactly in it.

It's a trade secret.

When you're cooking a burger

at home and you use our fingers, it'll clump up.

It won't season evenly.

We put it into the shakers.

It ensures that we season our burger patty all the same

and it goes out consistently to all our guests.

When you see the meat juices rise up to the top,

it's ready to be flipped.

Let's talk cheese.

My favorite cheese on a burger is American cheese.

In our case, cheese is important

because not only will it add flavor,

but it will bind the two patties of beef together.

It's the only glue that you should be proud of eating.

When you were a kid, did you eat Elmer's glue?

I bet you did.

That's nasty.

But this glue, natural glue

to hold the two patties together, that's what we want.

Goes on.

We have a dome lid here.

We use this to steam and melt the cheese

on every order of burger that we cook in the restaurant.

Add some water in there, steam

and it won't dry out the cheese either.

The steam just keeps everything moist.

Remember the patty that was kind of broken?

I used the natural glue cheese.

You can't even tell.

You rest steaks after you cook them,

you should also rest burgers when you cook them.

When you bite into a burger and the juices just

all flow out, it means it wasn't rested enough.

Let's get that stack of bread up, right?

We use sesame seeded milk buns,

an Asian style bread that was shaped like a burger bun.

And we get this made

at a local bakery here in New York City.

They just made this for us.

They researched, they developed this recipe

and I told them that's the spec that I want.

I don't expect you to be able to find a bread specifically

like this, but that's okay.

I prefer a sesame seeded bun, not brioche,

no hate to brioche buns, right?

It's a preference thing.

And actually I hate brioche buns.

Put that in there, I hate it.

The richness

of the brioche bun throws the burger balance off to me.

If I want a burger,

I want the bread to taste pretty neutral, fresh

and not overpower what the burger's supposed to tastes like.

Very soft, fresh, tastes like a Asian bread.

Sesame seeds are very nutty and savory.

Visually. It's a natural connection

of my favorite burger that I ate growing up

A Big Mac burger.

But not only does Big Mac have sesame seeds,

Korean cuisine is saturated with Sesame seeds.

So visually there's that connection,

there's that bridge to my heritage.

So we use this butter wheel to for our burger buns.

This is my hand motion.

And if you're evenly buttering the buns to order

and it's very efficient, consistent, and fast

you might be asking, okay

why are you toasting the milk bun?

I thought you didn't want butter this in the burger.

The butter will enhance the flavor

of the milk bun without changing what the milk bun is.

And number two, it'll toast

and kind of give structural support

on the top and the bottom bun.

Now I'm gonna press it down gently.

It's the same thing as

like getting the proper sear on the patty.

You also want proper toast on the bread.

And we do that by just pressing it down gently.

It's ready.

My fingers are burning.

Alright, I'm gonna be a DJ right now.

You ready?

Very crispy.

We make thousands of these every week

and every time I eat a burger, I think, okay

what can we do a little better?

A little better.

The bottom part of our bun was getting a little wet

so I'm like, all right, let's toast the buns.

Give it some support.

We'll toast off the buns first,

set the buns on the cutting board

and while that's resting

we have one cook that's putting the toppings on.

Toppings add character to a burger.

It adds flavor.

It adds balance.

As a Korean chef, pickles is one

of the toppings that I truly appreciate.

Without the pickles, the first bite might be delicious

but the second and third might be overly rich.

So the pickle is there as a topping to help combat that.

And it starts with these English cucumbers.

We want it to keep things very simple.

A pickle that's more vinegary,

a little punchy to combat the richness of the beef.

I won't be able to find pickles that taste exactly like this

because every pickle's ratio is slightly different.

We cut them pretty thick and we make sure that they're even

and we use a Japanese mandolin to do so.

Consistency is what separates restaurant food

with home food, we make 30 pounds of this a week

and when we make things in-house

we also control the cost of our food.

Pickles, three main things, vinegar, sugar, salt

and then add spices.

We have crushed red chili flakes, and then we have garlic.

That's your customized recipe.

This is a very small batch we're making.

Normally it's two large pots to make the liquid.

We make a big batch at the restaurant twice a week.

These pickles are made days in advance.

You want the flavor

of the pickle liquid to penetrate the cucumbers

and that doesn't happen in one hour or two hours.

That happens in a matter of 24 to 48 hours.

I love a good backyard burger, mustard, ketchup

American cheese, love that.

What's gonna separate my burger from the rest?

I gotta flex my Korean heritage.

In Korean cuisine,

you'll always find kimchi eaten with meat.

And to me, when I look at a burger, it's a meat dish.

So I'm like, [beep] oh, can I curse on this?

[Narrator] Absolutely.

I said [beep] it.

Let's put a kimchi special sauce.

Roasted kimchi.

It's like a Korean barbecue inspired slash Big Mac.

Can I say Big Mac?

I don't know if that trademark.

Put it together.

And here it is, legendary.

We're gonna put on the stove is kimchi paste.

This is something that my mother taught me years ago.

Beef is rich, it's fatty

and you want something to help cut through the richness.

To me as a Korean chef,

we need kimchi when we eat grilled meats.

And that's the reason,

damn, I'm giving away my family secrets here.

I'm gonna start putting stuff in here.

Garlic, I don't feel that.

I got a guy that feels that, Korean chili flakes,

fish sauce, white onion.

Just cut this out a little bit and this is ginger here

but I'm just gonna cut it down so it blends easier.

Put sugar, we're gonna blend it.

Wow, that smells amazing.

If you're Korean, you know what I'm talking about.

You smell this.

You think of your childhood.

My God, this is the best one I made in a long time.

To that, we're gonna add scallion.

Even when we cut the ingredients,

there's technique involved.

You're not gonna cut this much dican at home

and neither are you gonna cut it this fast

but it comes with years of experience.

Kimchi can be made with a lot of ingredients.

We're gonna make ours with Napa cabbage.

We do 80 pounds of this a week, salted overnight.

Kimchi is a very interesting thing.

You don't see it in burgers.

You just see it as a side dish in Korean cuisine,

kimchi is perfect for a burger.

We'll help balance out the rich patties

the rich beef flavor, that that is sexy.

That is beautiful.

Look at that.

My God, I gotta get a taste.

Whoa, oh my God, that's a little spicy.

All right, we made the kimchi.

Now here's the sauce.

For me personally, I love sauce.

Everyone could be using similar types of beef.

Everyone could be using similar types of pickles

similar type of bun, but sauce.

That's the sauce.

Literally, sauce is the sauce.

It's the flavor bomb, when I tell you it's a trade secret

so I can't tell you all the ingredients that are in it

but there's fresh kimchi, sesame oil, Kewpie mayo.

You might be able to make something like that,

but it won't taste anything like this.

Martial artists say you have to do something thousands

of times to become an expert.

And this sauce was developed

by making thousand burgers a week for the last four years.

And we're constantly tweaking very little by little.

The Kimchi we made earlier,

here's the batch aged one week and we chopped them up.

Alright, now we're gonna saute this.

In a hot pan,

we're adding homemade roasted scallion oil.

You don't have that at home.

We're gonna start off with some garlic.

So roasting the kimchi is a very Korean thing.

Roasting kimchi in the rendered pork fat

right on that skillet in the center of the table.

That's a vibe, right?

So in this pan here, we have roasted scallion oil.

That's very savory.

Then we have garlic, roasted aromatic flavor.

Then we add the kimchi.

You're cooking out the cabbage that's been salted

and there's a little sugar in there for a little sweetness.

So it'll start to caramelize

and you can tell by the color that that's already changing.

We're gonna add a touch of sesame oil to finish.

And if you could smell this right now, oh my god,

I'm gonna have the camera crew smell this.

It's a free gift.

This aroma's free.

Whoa, my, I love my job

but I don't have to add a lot to the burger

'cause I don't want it to overpower the burger.

All you need is a little bit to balance out the burger,

balance out the rich beef, balance out the cheese.

It's in the bin, it's ready for service.

Let's go.

First thing is sauce.

I love saucing both sides.

As you bite into the burger,

you want flavor to hit you from the top of your palate

to the bottom of your palate.

Pickles, we're gonna add to the top bun

because when you're biting onto the burger

the first thing you're gonna bite

into and taste is probably gonna be the pickle.

So it's like a jab to the face.

Then you get all the deep beef flavor followed

by the kimchi.

And it works in this kind of like wave of flavors.

It's a flavor journey.

On the bottom one, we're gonna go fresh onion.

Not only is it a nostalgic factor, it actually cuts

through the richness of the beef and the cheese.

Remember the kimchi we roasted earlier?

Now this is gonna go on the bottom part of the burger.

Most people don't know that the kimchi is there.

It's hiding underneath the patties.

When you bite into the burger and you go, wait a minute

there's something in there that's bringing even more flavor

to the burger and you're not quite sure what it is.

And that's the hidden secret of the burger.

And it hits you last

and it keeps the burger interesting as you eat it.

It's a sight, that's a sight right there.

And when you look at this

you cannot deny that this is a very well balanced burger.

It's the perfect architectural design.

It's a heavy burger guys,

this is a burger you cannot replicate at home.

However, it's something that you can always look at

and admire.

Alright, I'm going in.

Whoa, this burger is the beginning and the end.

This is the last bite that I want before I leave Earth.

I am so proud of this burger.

This is a legendary burger from Nowon.

And you can't make this at home.

[upbeat music]