GRIND YOUR OWN

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all. Now that we got that out of the way let's grind our own burgers This method and recipe was inspired by a popular cooking show on PBS. Of course we put our signature on the original method. Today we are going to take beef 'Flap' meat, grind it, shape it and cook it into home made hamburgers. Have another piece of pumpkin pie and join us while we "Grind Your Own".

Flap meat is similar to flank or skirt steak. It comes from the bottom sirloin area. It is lean, fiborous and can be chewy if cooked improperly. It is popular in Mexican markets where it is sliced thin and marinated. It is sold for use as 'carne asada'. At one time this meat was very cheap. Like all secrets meat finds this was exposed but still remains reasonably priced. There is no shortage of Mexican markets in the Bay Area so this meat was easy to find. We need one and one half pounds for this recipe.

1 1/2 pds of flap meat, 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and salt & pepper are the ingredients. Slice the meat and butter into 1/4 inch cubes. Place mixture in freezer for 30 minutes to firm up for the grinding procedure. Thirty minutes later place 1/3 of mixture in food processor. Pulse mixture aprox 15 times. Repeat the grind process twice more. Season pulsed mixture with 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste.. Form into patties. We made three good size patties because we (I) like them on the large side. Place patties on was paper and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour.

A very hot charcoal fire will cook our burger patties. A final dusting of a little more salt & pepper was applied. I highly recommend using a covered grill because these burgers create a fire storm from the melting butter hitting hot charcoal. We cooked them 5 minutes per side to create a medium burger. A minute less if you like your burgers still mooing. Ms. Goofy proclaimed these burgers had a great crust and had a steak like quality. I notice a wonderful mouth feel from the pulsing to a rough grind in the processor. The butter added a richness but probably could not identify butter flavor.This was a success. Ms. Goofy proclaimed this was the only way she will have burgers from now on. I am going to have another piece of pie and glue myself to the couch. Happy Thanksgving.