hey yeah my Thor meat tenderizer here
one - ah cold
[Music]
to be a real burger pro you have to
understand the different ways of dial up
flavor attaining burger Lord status
involves more than just a fancy
cast-iron or spatula it involves science
that's why I'm teaming up with the
modern astronomy guru Dave Arnold Dave's
gonna pull back the curtain on must-know
burger concepts that I'm gonna bring to
life Dave welcome to our burger show
burger lab thanks for having we have
like cool things colors right right we
have our really high-tech cookery and I
mean yeah sure look if you guys don't
know who he is
he'll tell you why he's here so I
founded this thing called the Museum of
food and drink which is can devoted to
the history culture science technology
of food and also for many years I've
worked on how to use technology to make
food and drink more delicious and also
you created the Sears all I use the
scientific kind of ideas to create tools
for people in the kitchen cooking is a
lot like science a lot like chemistry in
that you know there are a lot of things
if you understand them helped you
achieve better results now that you need
to know it in order but it's helpful to
help hone your observations we're doing
this burger show I'm eating some of the
best burgers in the world but I wanted
to like explain why they're so good
right well me there's a lot to look at
in a burger right there's that there's a
texture of the burger so if there's the
flavor of the outside the kind of the
crust to sear on outside and then
there's how can we adjust kind of that
beefy hit that kind of meaty beefy hit
so whenever anyone talks science people
tend to get intimidated especially throw
out words you might not know exactly
what they are like mommy or my arms and
things like this and so we're just gonna
break it down really simply so you can
use those techniques to make a better
burger we got our lab coats you got the
master class we'll make the master
burger what do you think let's do it
so as a chef and as a restaurateur we
like to use like certain catchphrases
and and umami is one of them there's
even a chain called Umami Burger a lot
of people don't know what Mommy actually
is up until fairly recently people would
actually have debates is umami real or
not like you know there's no question
who
is an actual sensation your tongue can
get it's an actual taste like it's real
it's like sweet sour salty bitter bitter
right and then they say Oh mommy's the
fifth flavor the term comes from 1908
when a scientist dr. Ikeda in Japan was
actually researching seaweed and dashi
broth and figuring out why it was so
savory why it was so delicious and the
isolated particular chemical that
happens to be on here that provides that
sensation right which is msg is MSG
something bad it's a hundred percent
fine you don't want to use too much of
it because if you consume too too much
sodium for some people it can be you
know problem with blood pressure and
also like you can get dehydrated you
need to consume a lot of water but MSG
on its own it's not bad for you Chinese
restaurant syndrome right is just some
racist garbage that people put out you
know in a name in the 70s and it's just
kind of stuck with us right so if you
support that you're supporting racism
how about that boom okay well that said
let's make a no mommy burger it's one of
my favorite things around so in order to
make the parmesan frico really you just
get a pan I have it set at 325 degrees
you really just create the cheese on top
what is it about Parmesan cheese so
Parmesan is interesting it's a grana
right so it's an aged kind of a hard
cheese and that style of aged cheese
tends to have the components in it they
were in the milk break down quite a bit
and it's that breakdown and aging right
that gives it it's kind of big
umami bomb properties and it is like one
of the all-time great like umami burgers
this is about to crisp up and then we'll
scrape it off next would be the shitake
mushrooms mushrooms are amazing because
they have both kind of a savory umami
hit an amine integrity a little pro tip
as well when you're cooking mushrooms is
you don't want to put too many in a pan
it has a lot of moisture in it and all
of that water comes out and then ruins
the texture of the mushroom you just
take about you know three minutes on
each side in the meantime let's grab
this burger patty let's sprinkle some of
this through mommy dust it again
this is just porcini powder salt pepper
and then grated kombu two minutes on
each side while we're getting this Umami
Burger going I'm gonna do a really quick
umami ketchup so we're gonna take this
another notch in and really just you
know put about a teaspoon of fish sauce
in there I've never been to the change
allow me burger but it's kind of like
you know what do we what do we like the
Thai and umami that we can go for like
okay
ketchup yes fish sauce yes when I eat
burgers at home I have the fish sauce on
the table and we just - ate on to the
top yeah yeah this is low and slow carb
onions we've caramelized these for about
I don't know like four or five hours we
low and slow roasted tomatoes with salt
and olive oil give the buns a little bit
of a toasts so mommy burger usually uses
a Portuguese button that they get
specially made a Hawaiian sweet roll is
actually a Portuguese bun a little bit
of this umami ketchup on the bottom and
on the top button you gotta do both oh
yeah gotta be both then we'll do the
caramelized onions on the bottom taught
me with this parmesan frico a little bit
of this roasted tomato and one of these
mushrooms you order that way so that
when the parmesan shatters it stays in
there because the tomato holds it down
right
the Oh mommy burger the burger show
mommy burger already my mouth feels like
awake now notice also when you're
dealing with something heavy you know
mommy it gives you license to pull out
those kind of sweet flavors more right
so if you didn't have as much whoo mommy
and you had that much like sweetness
with caramelized onions and from the
reduced Tomatoes alright my ketchup it
might be overwhelming but because we
have so much of that kind of savory hit
there right unless you go big all the
way across the board
umami burger has a concept ooh mommy has
a thing is just it's like peanut butter
and jelly when it comes to burgers say
yeah like I would like a beer
oh yeah all right so here we are
smash burger the crispy thin patty that
you smash into a pan when you see these
food bloggers like oh the crust of my
yard it's almost like another buzzword
right
so mired reactions are super important
when you say my or it's actually a lot
kind of more complicated than that my
heart's complicated enough like you get
reducing sugars and you get proteins and
you heat them right and you get these
kind of brown toasty roasted kind of
meaty kind of aroma roasted aromas but
in addition for something like this
you're also getting texture differences
you're getting kind of dehydration
concentration issues crunchiness B and
so we tend mentally to lump them all
together you're kind of my yard to keep
it simple yeah my art when you're making
them iron reactions you're making those
kind of awesome flavors okay this is
probably the most common way of making
burgers in America it's a ball you throw
it on the griddle and you smash it like
why is that the case let me get the
board so obviously when you're working
high-volume the easiest thing to make
with hamburgers is balls not past it's a
lot less steps a lot easier to store
first right less likely to oxidize it's
not flattened out right but I think the
key thing is in most diners right you're
not cooking in a pan you can put oil
into the bottom of the pool and the
burger can sit in that oil and all the
little nooks and crannies on the bottom
of the burger gets a crust gets that
crust because the oil can hit all sides
this is why deep-frying is kind of God's
cooking technology right as it can get
to all parts of the meat right in time
and in fact the rougher the surface is
when you're deep frying or pan frying
the crispier it is when you're on a
griddle
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when you're on a griddle if I put oil on
to a griddle it just runs off run right
off I can't do it and in a diner
situation when you're running all night
if you have oil it's gonna smoke it's
gonna burn right it's gonna ask nasty
it's gonna wreck your hoods so the
easiest thing to do is the taste of it
and you're saying you're gonna take a
ball put it on and smash it flat now
once you have something flat on a
griddle if you don't if you have all
those little bumps that's on the bottom
of a regular handmade burger this
surface is never gonna touch that it's
gonna be blond and we've all seen like
like a piece of meat that has blonde
patches in it because the person didn't
get good contact between the pan or the
griddle and right and it sucks it's
unpleasant right so when you're forming
this you smash it
but lat you have the maximum surface
area in contact with your dry pan so we
have a situation where we're talking all
about the crust right you're getting
dehydrated crunchy crispy flat things
and so it ends up being a very easy way
to produce kind of an iconic style
all right let's [ __ ] make one all
right I'm doing the food god Kenji
Lopez's version we're cooking the bun
it's a Martin's potato roll it's like a
it's a New York standard oh yeah these
are two outs or a little less than two
ounces you throw it on there no grease I
have this really cool heavy set spatula
and Adel so you could push it gets even
pressure yeah and you look because
there's no actual kind of layer of
grease for it to live in
if you hadn't pressed it there's no way
you'd get good contact between me all of
the patty pepper you're not gonna touch
this you know let it get crispy and then
we flip it and again we use this you
know industrial scraper because you want
to scrape the bottom of this when you
flip it over to get all that beautiful
crisp eNOS flip it over it would be a
huge mistake to try to use one of those
blunt like like plasticy spatula this
will just shred the thing of yeah or
you'll just leave the good stuff on the
bottom of the
now here put that on top and let's melt
the cheese and let's use this really
awesome tool that you invented called
the Sears all this is it like a device I
use to turn a torch into a broiler
called the Sears off this is so thin
it's gonna melt itself but I actually
like to kind of toast cheese a little
bit so I'm just gonna like hit it from
two sides I'm a to side cooking man if I
can be throw it on there put a couple of
these pickles on top and bam there you
go you look at that it's perfectly
shingled yeah let's try this guy I need
100 of these yeah yeah but that's the
thing you would need to eat up we don't
forget like well use original diner
burgers were built around allowing
people to eat meat in an economical way
right this is like a simple beat though
mommy burger is more of a symphony of
flavors this is just more of like one
thing that's just shines rather make no
mistake like there is mommy in that and
smashing it flat has gotten the kind of
most and mommy we could get out of the
meat that we write but like you say it's
more of a one pure note and not like
let's start with her mommy since that
was the first one we did it's like super
rich right but you know I guess saying I
don't know that that's your everyday
burger then you got the smash burger I
think it's like the most beef flavor
with the least actual beef beef like
that's kind of a plus it's like if
you're gonna multi patty like it's the
easiest one to multi yeah say I was
gonna eat a whole bunch and I had to
have one every day right I would
probably choose to smash burger but I
had to have one every day and I think
like you know when I go home I'm gonna
be I think about taking the best bits of
each burger and incorporating them into
kind of a more hybrid style I still like
the smash burger the bus
[Music]
so this wouldn't be a science burger
show and we didn't freeze her burger
with look at nitrogen and smash the [ __ ]
out of it man I've never done it let's
try let's do it all right a liquid
nitrogen is minus 196 Celsius so it's
like freaking cold hey you got my Thor
meat tenderizer here one to old oh yeah
yeah okay
not only meat not so much right might
call your spot pumping if you got
crushed ice in a Styrofoam cup with the
rebuild right so homey order your
mountain to the next police show I'm out
on the streets looking for something to
keep like wow we [ __ ] your studio up
sorry guys sup guys have a kai-lan for
the burger show thank you for watching
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please and thank you