E. coli be darned, I still order my burgers done "as rare as you possibly can." A girl's allowed a vice or two, right?
While plenty of places are still willing to bend the rules, legally speaking, ground beef must be cooked to 160 degrees to kill the creepy crawlies. But you can be safe while still enjoying thick, pink-centered, dripping cheeseburgers. Grind your own beef. Commercially ground beef, for reasons I won't go into here (but if you're curious, read Fast Food Nation), carries a much higher risk of contamination than meat freshly ground in a home grinder.
I buy fatty chuck - 20 percent fat, at least - and put it through the 'coarse' plate of my KitchenAid meat grinder attachment. You can get free-standing grinders pretty cheap at kitchenware stores. Then I mix it, by hand, with a healthy squeeze of ketchup, tons of salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce and chopped garlic, maybe some cayenne. Don't mix too much, or you'll compress the beef and end up with a too-hard burger. Then onto the grill. A friend just taught me a nifty test for doneness - when pressing on the burger, if it feels firm like the skin between your thumb and index finger when you're fingers are outstretched, it's well-done. If it feels slightly loose, like the same bit of skin when your hand's relaxed, it's medium-rare.
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
