A celebrity chef shared his at-home recipe for a simple McDonald's-inspired cheeseburger
- Celebrity chef Dan Hong shared a video on his Instagram detailing how he makes a McDonald's-inspired quarter pounder cheeseburger at home.
- The recipe and method are very straightforward, with most ingredients probably already in your cupboard.
- You will need soft burger buns (not brioche or crusty), minced beef, processed American cheese, dill pickles, finely chopped white onion, Heinz ketchup, American mustard, and a pinch of salt.
- He said for a really delicious burger you need to buy the best meat mince possible from a quality butcher, and recommends 50% brisket with 50% chuck beef.
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Celebrity chef Dan Hong, the man behind Australian restaurant chain Mr Wong, shared his secrets to creating a McDonald's-inspired quarter pounder cheeseburger at home.
Posting an IG TV video to his Instagram account, where he has been hosting an isolation cooking series, Hong ran through the ingredients and method he uses to make a quick cheeseburger when he's craving McDonald's.
"Today, I'm going to do very simple cheeseburgers inspired by one of my favourite burgers at McDonald's, the cheeseburger or the quarter pounder," Hong said at the beginning of the clip.
He said all you need are soft burger buns, minced beef, processed American cheese, dill pickles, finely chopped white onion, Heinz ketchup, American mustard, and a pinch of salt.
Hong starts by explaining how it's important to buy the best minced beef you possibly can, and advises getting your beef from a quality butcher over what you'd find at the supermarket.
The chef also recommends asking for half and half of your beef mince, with 50% chuck and 50% brisket.
"If you get good quality beef mince, from your butcher or your premium meat supplier, the beef is going to be delicious," he said, "I like grain-fed, I think it's got more flavor in terms of that fat that comes out."
His first big burger cooking tip is to not season the patties at all.
Speaking in the video, Hong said: "The biggest no-no of doing hamburger patties is putting seasoning inside — no dried herbs, no bread crumbs, no ketchup, none of that crap because that's not a hamburger. You know what that is? That's a rissole. We're not making rissole sandwiches, we're making burgers."
According to Hong, the only seasoning the burger needs is salt, just before it gets cooked.
As for the buns, Hong likes to use really soft ones as opposed to brioche or a crusty bun.
Hong also said that with the perfect burger, the meat pokes a little bit out of its bun.
"Make sure your patties are bigger than your buns in terms of diameter," he said.
"The reason is when we cook the patty, it's going to shrink and when the patty shrinks, we don't want it to be smaller than the bun. There's nothing worse than a terrible meat to bun ratio in a burger."
The video moves to the burgers getting seasoned with a salt before being fried in a little oil in a smoking hot pan.
Hong said he likes to press his patties down with a spatula at the beginning of the frying process for "maximum caramelization."
Cooking them on one side for a couple of minutes, Hong waits until the patty edges start to look greyish in color as an indicator of when to flip them.
After turning the meat over, he steams the soft buns for 20 seconds.
While still in the pan, the cheese is placed on top of each burger and another pan is added to the mix acting as a lid to steam the melting cheese.
Once the buns and patties are done, Hong puts the finishing touches on his at-home quarter pounder — he puts American mustard on the bottom bun in a zig-zag with a tiny bit of ketchup.
The patty then follows with dill pickles, and he squirts the ketchup in a zig-zag formation again on the top bun with a sprinkling of the fine raw white onion sticking to the sauce.
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