Veggie burger from Tesco

I've never quite understood the whole rare burger thing.

Unless I dreamed it, I am sure I've picked up off more than one TV cooking prog that burgers should not be eaten rare.

I even remember the explanation. All raw meat grows bacteria on its outside surfaces where exposed to the air. For your regular slab of meat this is no problem because when you cook it the outsides are nicely toasted and the bacteria killed.

Now with mince, each liittle mince ball has its own surface area. Bundle all those little bits into a burger, cook it rare, and those individual bits in the center with their own surface areas might not be sufficently cooked to kill the bacteria.

So I guess it's mainly what folk are saying already - like a blue steak the meat must be super fresh or it'll make you ill. I guess super-fresh and you can get away with rare burgers.

Industrial stock sat in the fridge for a few days or frozen, I guess it a huge no no.

^^^^ This. And this is what I have been taught on food hygiene courses that mince should always be cooked through. I think middle temp reaches 170C.

OK, just checked. Whole cuts like steaks and chops is 145C, for ground beef its 160C. At I 160C I don't think its pink any longer

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/bacteria/

Best burger I've had was in the restaurant at Tate Modern. I don't eat burgers that much or go to art galleries that much either. So, just lucky.

Interesting recent Food Programme about burgers (R4). It's all about the beef:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011tw7n
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011...-hamburg.shtml

For a heart attack in a bun, Atomic Burger in Oxford are hard to beat. They're HUGE, with great fillings. Very messy and best eaten in the car slobbering all over the place.

For civilised burgers I'd say Ed's even though it's just a diner. Byron's are bland and I don't like the buns. I've had gristle at Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

I agree 100%! If I went to somewhere called XXXXXX Steakhouse, I'd have steak. Only if it became a "regular" haunt of mine would I try something else. It's like when some of us went to Mourne Seafood Bar in Belfast for a meal and one of my friends complained that there was nothing but seafood on the menu. Funny that

Same here. You'd go for the signature item.

I was watching a Rick Stein program the other day and he said he was still surprised about how many customers order steak in his seafood restaurant.
I guess a majority of people who do that though are not seafood fans but are there with other people.

There's always the exceptions that prove the rule though. Raw kibbeh (mince), medium rare burgers, steak tartar, medium rare iberico pork chop...

How about rare chicken kebabs
Japan - see Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
http://tonguecheek.com/2010/05/ask-a...t-raw-chicken/

A burger van on the industrial estate where I work.

Worst was a takeaway which caused me to spend 4 days on the toilet. It was an effective way to lose weight though...

I remember that episode. The reason Bourdain said it was ok was something to do with the freshness of the chicken. In that, the chicken was literally butchered and eaten which meant that there was minimal chance of getting salmonella. Can't remember the exact details as it was a long time ago I saw it, but something along the lines of that salmonella only becomes harmful to humans whenever it has had a chance to fester on the meat for a period of time (i.e. the time between butchering and your plate).

http://youtu.be/9WIaVMRPg8M?t=9m46s

Apologies for veering slightly off topic

Great....thanks I LOVE Bourdain!

Yeah, apologies for the OT chat!!

These are all reliant on the freshness of the meat and tbh unless I know the source thEN I won't trust most places.

Also best mince is from well hung meat which hardly any place is going to use. I did read in time out that the savoy do an amazing kobi beef burger if you have the dosh

I watch a show called Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives about US local restaurants and on a few occasions there have been places selling kobe burgers, hotdogs and meatloaf
And these places are not high end so it's amazing to think about how cheap the beef prices must be over there.

they are, its cheaper to eat out then cook at home. gives you a hint about quality.

In the US recently I went out for dinner with a colleague. We each had a Kobe rib-eye steak, two crab cakes, salad and bread. He had two whiskeys and I had two beers. Bearing in mind the whiskeys were $7 each, the meal cost $64! I'm not entirely sure it was Kobe for that price but it was a pretty nice restaurant with a good reputation locally.

talking about kobi beef, just a did a search and found scotch kobi beef reared in scotland, not sure what thats about ?

You can get Welsh wagyu beef. You get kobe steaks from it.

Just did a bit of reading. wagyu is the breed , kobe is the region its processed and where its beer feed with daily massages, so yes wagya beef can come from outside of kobe. Kobe wagya means it reared in a specific way at one of the 260 small farms in kobe region that produce wagya beef.

http://www.beef-restaurant.co.uk/breeds.html

I guess the terms get lost in translation sometimes. I was watching a show last week where they visited a Welsh farm that farmed wagyu cattle and in the shop they sold Kobe steaks. They did massage the cows and feed them Welsh beer.

I do Wendys for the fries and the frosty... In-N-Out for the burger.

The problem with chickens is they come with a high risk of being infected with Salmonella. The bacteria is in the meat, not necessarily on it, which is why it is so important to ensure the flesh is cooked right through.

I spend a lot of time in the US and I tend not to like the burgers you get in bars and restaurants - they are usually a full half pound and are far too big. A quarter pounder is the perfect size for a burger. I'd rather have two smaller burgers than one huge one.

One of my favourites is a small (by American standards) burger made of Buffalo meat. Incredibly lean and tasty.

I've eaten rare burgers on many occasions and have lived to tell the tale.

American Kobe isn't the same as Japanese kobe. They dispense with the massage and the beer for a start.