The secret's in the salt

The other day we did what any normal, red-blooded American in Denmark would do with a couple pounds of ground beef in the fridge: burgers.
The secret I've learned with these is from my dad. You don't need to mix a bunch of hoodle-ee-hoo into the beef. You don't need to massage it gently before forming into patties.
You take a clump of meet, pat it into shape as flat as you can and they're ready to go. Actually, I've found that the less you mess with it, the more tender the meat.
One thing I've now tried a few times - Nikolaj told me they do it out at his amazing scout-like after-school program - is to get a big, sharp knife and make a bunch of firm criss-cross marks on each side of the patty. This is supposed to keep them flat when cooking -- mine always poof up into these very fat things, which makes it hard for the kids to eat (also since they load on the tomatoes, onions, pickles, avocado, ketchups, bbq sauces, mustards, etc - just like we do). I tried a few with the criss-crosses and without this time, but frankly I couldn't see the difference. Well.... FRANKLY, I forgot to notice when they were off the grill!

But here's Dad's secret: onion salt (bought in the Longmont, Colorado, Safeway... can't get it here). That does the trick every time. I salt em just after I slap em on the grill, then when I flip 'em.
Also - don't overcook them. It's easy to keep going and going, waiting for the "red" to go away, but believe me, it goes away sooner than you know - if you insist on "medium" or well burgers. Once you pull any meat off the grill, it keeps cooking for awhile on the inside. Total cooking time is around 6-7 minutes - depending on how hot your fire is.

Anette - as always - made the buns from scratch. Incredible. And as always, she didn't really use a recipe - just kind of went by feel. If anyone's interested, I can ask her for the basics. I've tried to make the hamburger buns in our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, but ... bleh! Boring! And way too much work for what they were worth.

Drinking while grilling: Cafe latte. Was exhausted and Anette and I both needed a pick-me-up. Later shared an incredible Belgian tripel from Watou. Oh man.