How big burger?

To address the elephants in the room:

• Is this an essential gadget? Definitely not

• Have I survived all these years without one? Yes

• Have I always wanted one? Yes

The other elephant is burger vs patty. For the purest, a burger should have nothing but meat and seasoning in it. If we are going down that route then you should then select your cuts of steak and grind them yourself. However, using shop bought mince automatically excuses any preciousness around the subject. We’ll save the self ground burger for another day!

Back to the gadget. I have to confess the weight and heftiness combined with adjustable burger size was what sold me. This allows me to easily make myself a decent sized burger whilst getting nice thin but compressed burgers for the kids. The compression helps the burger stay together under heat.

My eldest’s favourite burger is the school burger, so I went pretty straight up for this. Egg, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper with 20% fat steak mince. Unfortunately whilst getting the thumbs up, they still didn’t quite make the grade. Disappointing.

For a more positive outcome, the two burgers I made for the grown ups were a success. I added finely chopped spring onion, garlic powder, Dijon mustard and Greek oregano.

I made these ahead of time. The press comes with 100 sheets to put between the burgers so you can stack them nicely and go in the fridge until required. Ideally pull them out an hour before cooking to come to room temperature.

The burgers cooked well, stayed nice and moist, and importantly held together.

I’m now looking forward to hot weather and knocking out a load of them to get some return on my investment!

A great purchase even if more than a little indulgent.

Just one important note is the cleaning. Make sure you unscrew the plunger and dismantle it to give it a good cleaning otherwise you’ll be risking a nasty dose of food poisoning.