Polity: BURGERGASM
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Can we not be more data driven here?
Assign a percentage value to 9 or 10 qualities: meatiness, bun crispness, cheesiness, choice of ingredients. Then weight this with a factor derived from the name of the restaurant’s position within a canonical set of Wellington restaurant names, aligned to traditional thematic factors: South American revolutionaries, primitive built structures, food components, etc.
Then put all the raw data into R and produce a cluster diagram and hence calculate the Minkowski distance between each burger and the basic Maccas.
Might tell you something. Or not.
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I refused chicken and vegetarian burgers on principle.
And yet centrists accuse the left of identity politics!
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Any minced burger meat that is pink in the middle is likely to house gut-wrenching nasties and so should be avoided, or well cooked to ensure that any lurking salmonellae are toast.
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The Ramen burger over in Newtown was spectacular.... I really wish they would put it on the permanent menu.
The Paua burger at spruce goose was "ok" massive amount of Paua in the pattie.... Like 97% paua with only just enough other stuff in it to hold it together nothing more. -
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
I would recommend reading a chapter in one of Anthony Bourdain's books attacking that idea - burger meat, like any other meat* shouldn't have to be cooked to destruction to destroy pathogens.
* With the exception of chicken and to some degree pork.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Any minced burger meat that is pink in the middle is likely to house gut-wrenching nasties and so should be avoided, or well cooked to ensure that any lurking salmonellae are toast.
Not true. It is not "likely", it is possible if hygiene standards are not met, but by no means likely.
Most commercial minced meat is produced under pretty high standards. IF the chefs and food preparation area is good then there is more risk of food poisoning at home than from eating a medium-rare burger.
IF the meat is minced on site and again IF chefs and kitchen are good quality you can eat the meat raw with again very little risk, much less risk than you took driving to the burger joint.
Also worth noting that as you overcook the meat into sterility you are almost certainly blackening the outside and introducing (delicious) carcinogens.
From a personal perspective if you are going to cook the meat to sterility you may as well become a vegetarian (although note that food poisoning from sprouts etc is not uncommon either).
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
With the exception of chicken
A friend who worked as an epidemiologist never eats chicken outside his home. And then avoids fresh chicken because there is no certainty that it has been stored at a safe temperature, frozen is much safer.
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On the burger front in Auckland, it's hard to go past Burger Burger (medium-rare).
I love home made burgers but have a big problem getting buns that don't dissolve into a soggy mess. Almost certainly because I put too much into the burger :).
I do quite like the Mt Roskill Burgerfuel.
Best burger I've ever had was in Cambodia, not sure if it was partly the location (probably) but Raffles in Siem reap made a burger that has lasted in the memory.
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Ham burglars?
A Pizzeria / Panini Bar near the Vatican.
One wonders how they decided which
ingredients matched which actor... -
Not true. It is not "likely", it is possible if hygiene standards are not met, but by no means likely.
This is fine if you are cooking a solid piece of meat, as any pathogens will only be on the outside surface. With mince the outside surface is on the inside and any pathogens are mixed right through. So now the inside of the patty has to reach 75 degrees, which will kill the bacteria , and cook the patty well.
I wouldn't recommend that anyone trusts supermarket mince to be free of bacteria.
Stop for a second and think about what the cows go into the works covered in. -
Another semi-recent burger rant:
You know who fucks up burgers more than anyone else in the world? Australians. Australia has no idea what a burger is. They put a fried egg on their burger. They put canned beetroot on it, like a wedge of it. I am not joking you. This is how they eat their burger.
Methinks he didn't make it to NZ.
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Homemade burgers are the best. Fry some diced onions lightly, with added garlic, herbs, salt, whatever you fancy. Let them cool while you mix up mince, a beaten egg, maybe some breadcrumbs, maybe a little flour, Worcestershire sauce, a dash of tomato sauce. Add the cooled onions with the oil you cooked them in. Shape the mince mix into patties and fry gently.
But here's the cunning bit. Have all your burger makings lined up ready on the bench, including lightly toasted buns, and invite your fussy daughters to assemble their own burgers with whatever fillings they fancy. Serve with homemade ovenbaked rosemary potato wedges on the side, or if you're in a rush because you've been working late and you've got a meeting to go to, then cheat with Watties or McCains fries, or even better, send the kids around to the local chippie while you're cooking the patties.
Keeps absolutely everyone in my house happy.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Stop for a second and think about what the cows go into the works covered in.
No don’t. Stop for a second and think about the huge effort and cost that goes into ensuring the butchering of our meat animals results in meat free from bacteria. It really is a sophisticated process that works very well. Or does so long as we maintain a publicly funded inspection process to monitor, which at the moment is still pretty damn good.
Most meat contamination occurs AFTER the meat leaves the freezing works. The big exception is chicken, which is almost always contaminated at the time of slaughter, the key with chicken is to reduce growth of that contamination hence rapid freezing is good.
Eating a medium-rare burger is really not as much of a hazard as driving to the burger joint.
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Can I just say portabello mushrooms make a great burger pattie, especially if you melt blue cheese into them.
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Vivid, in reply to
I'm a chef, with my safety certificates, who has watched cows go down the chain.
I wouldn't eat raw mince. And you are not going to convince me. -
Also, restaurants generally don't buy their mince from supermarkets.
Also, I am an epidemiologist and I eat chicken away from home all the time. First, the rates of campylobacter in chicken have plummetted since the poultry industry finally saw reason and changed their handling and packaging practices. Second, as far as I'm aware, most of the chicken campylobacter cases occurred at home anyway. Of course, there's the difficulty of not knowing the denominator for calculating and comparing rates, but I've not seen any evidence that eating away-cooked chicken is or was any more or less risky than eating home-cooked chicken either now or during the campylobacter epidemic.
Mince meat should be cooked thoroughly to preven E. coli. That means reaching at least 70C all the way through. However, I don't know if it's possible for mince meat to reach 70C and remain pink. Anyone?
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Another semi-recent burger rant:
You know who fucks up burgers more than anyone else in the world? Australians. Australia has no idea what a burger is. They put a fried egg on their burger. They put canned beetroot on it, like a wedge of it. I am not joking you. This is how they eat their burger.
Methinks he didn’t make it to NZ.
We call it the Kiwiburger.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Might tell you something. Or not.
It would definitely tell you something. Whether it would be something you already knew or not is unknown.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
IF the meat is minced on site and again IF chefs and kitchen are good quality you can eat the meat raw with again very little risk, much less risk than you took driving to the burger joint.
Mmmm ... steak tartare.
A well-prepared dish of raw steak is a fine thing.
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Rob Salmond, in reply to
I wouldn't eat raw mince. And you are not going to convince me.
What if I buy a thick steak or roast cut, sear all sides to kill surface pathogens, then grind it at home? At that point, can I sear the patty and have some rare mince in safety?
For me, I'll take the risk if it's a good restaurant. And yes, I've paid the price twice before, so I know what I'm risking.
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Rob Salmond, in reply to
Mmmm … steak tartare.
A well-prepared dish of raw steak is a fine thing.
Fun fact: Last year's Burger Wellington featured a tartare burger, which was 100% delicious.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Homemade burgers are the best.
They are. And fun to make.
Next best is the Angel Bay range of frozen pre-cooked patties. I buy them in the big wholesale pack from Gilmour's (they work out just over a dollar each) and keep them around for dinner emergencies, along with frozen buns. They're good.
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I'm also a fan of the classic tofu burger with satay sauce, but tofu sucks if you don't fry it just right.
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Vivid, in reply to
"What if I buy a thick steak or roast cut, sear all sides to kill surface pathogens, then grind it at home? At that point, can I sear the patty and have some rare mince in safety?"
Absolutely, or you could poach it briefly in boiling water. But you will have grey bits in your pink mince unless you trim off the outsides.
In America people die eating burgers, that doesn't happen here.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Our Bush Fairy Dairy Food Caravan, (Thurs, Fri, Sat nights) has an extensive range of burgers that are all great munchies. All the mince is organic, free range eggs, organic everything. I get the Tofu blue cheese burger with tomato and beetroot. Yuuummmy!
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