They look pretty good. Cheese on the right could have gone a few more seconds to finish melting, but it's at least on its way there. Toppings look fresh, buns look fine, it's obviously not meant to be a tidy affair. The reported undercookedness of the patties is concerning, considering the beef is ground, but OP is going to get lost in a mineshaft, so it's ok. Enjoy!
Today's burger comes from the home kitchen: on our plate is a double third-pounder with ghost pepper jack and bacon, prepared by yours truly.
Let's start with the elephant in the room: That Burger Is Too Tall. There's nothing wrong with a third-pound patty, but they should have been smashed down to about half as tall as they were when they hit the griddle. The consequences are broad:
Flatter patties will cook through faster. These take much longer to heat, which means more work managing to not burn them.
Patties this thick retain more grease, meaning they need to be properly exsanguinated (exoleated? I'm going to use that from now on) before they land on the bun, lest we soak through it.
Over-height burgers are more difficult to eat and sometimes even to hold.
We'll see these issues come back to bite us shortly. Please, remember that your patties will become thicker and narrower when you cook them! These patties looked very reasonable when they went on the heat, and they came out rounder than a physicist's cow.
On with the review!
Kate's House
Double third-pounder with pepper jack (jalapeño, habanero, ghost) and bacon on a toasted grocery store bun.
Grade: B
Meat: 2x 1/3 lb patties, too thick. Dense and consequently tough. Seasoned simply, salt and black pepper. Retained heat well, assisted by the pepper. Something's missing; it feels like there's a void where there should be a particular flavor.
Cheese: Not enough for the meat. I know this cheese has a good flavor with a nice heat, but it wasn't able to shine today since we ran out.
Bun: The Safeway brand "artisan" buns are pretty strong contenders, even without considering their humble origins. Unfortunately, they didn't stand a chance today. Holding this burger together requires gripping with such force that the bread was immediately flattened. This bun served its burger to the end, but at the cost of its dignity.
Execution: Cheese had already started to solidify by the time the patties made it to the plate. Bacon was interleaved between patties in a misguided attempt at Flavor; it made no difference whatsoever. The overwhelming thickness and density of the meat, and relative lack of cheese, made this burger something of a chore to work through. Patties were mostly drained of grease, but the first full bite still produced a geyser from the toothpick hole.
Overall: Far from a great burger, but not terrible either. A reasonable attempt from a humble student of the Way of the Burger.
Random tip of the day: "Habanero" (and "habanera") refer to something being from Havana, Cuba; it's just an n, not an ñ! I finally looked it up today and thought that was interesting.
You can either squish it real hard (dangerous), or take bites that don't span the entire height of the burger (awkward). Excessively tall burgers were bred for a bourgeois aesthetic and should not exist in real life
"Making a better burger is literally so simple, I don't know why McDonald's doesn't do it this way. First we're going to begin by craft dry-aging this A5 wagyu beef with the sho-shu-ryuba technique that I learned at a restaurant you're only allowed to work at if your parents are bluelinked on wikipedia..."
okay but legitimately just. season the beef before you shape the patties. just salt and pepper, and an egg if you can. blend in a stand mixer. form 1/3 lb patties from a heaping #12 scoop and maybe 2/3" thick if memory serves. cook like a fucken burger. plate on a shitty dry bun and serve
I was under the impression that the only reason you would need to put an egg in there is if you're using beef with too low fat content for binding it together - even then you could technically just knead it some more to get the myosin to come out and get it all sticky, right?
"Making a better burger is literally so simple, I don't know why McDonald's doesn't do it this way. First we're going to begin by craft dry-aging this A5 wagyu beef with the sho-shu-ryuba technique that I learned at a restaurant you're only allowed to work at if your parents are bluelinked on wikipedia..."
okay but legitimately just. season the beef before you shape the patties. just salt and pepper, and an egg if you can. blend in a stand mixer. form 1/3 lb patties from a heaping #12 scoop and maybe 2/3" thick if memory serves. cook like a fucken burger. plate on a shitty dry bun and serve
okay so this looks like lettuce chicken cheddar pickle mayo(?) on a bun. A chicken sandwich to be sure, and the chicken itself looks tasty. I myself don't care for most of what's in the picture, but stripped down to meat and bread it might be pretty good. Some execution issues of course, including the unmelted cheese and the extreme helping of sauce. It does appear to be more of a photo piece than an actual serving.