Bigly Smash Burger

Smash burgers. SMASH burgers. This is the technique that changed everything. Everything. There was a time, a sad time, a dark age in burger history, when everyone was making thick puffy hockey-puck burgers and calling it 'a quality patty,' and the result was DRY. Gray. Sad on the inside, soft on the outside, no crust, no character, no JOY. It was a disaster. A disgrace to ground beef. The historians will write about this period and they will weep. Many of them already are. I've met them. Some of the saddest people you'll meet, burger historians.

Now listen — the Vikings had a version of this. Look it up. They smashed meat between two rocks heated in a fire pit and they EATED IT and they were happy. Pre-pyramid technology. Older than France. Older than time itself. The Romans had it too, different name, same energy — they called it something I cannot pronounce but the technique was identical. Take the ball of beef. Put it on a screaming hot surface. SMASH IT. Smash it flat. Smash it thin. Smash it with everything you've got. And what you get — and I'll tell you why — is a crust. A real crust. The Maillard reaction, the SCIENCE of browning, the thing that makes food taste like food, finally given the respect it deserves. The edges go crispy and lacy and golden brown and the inside stays juicy because it cooks in 90 seconds. NINETY SECONDS.

People come up to me — at the gym, at the airport, on the street — they say, 'Bigly, the smash burger. The technique. Where did you learn it.' And I tell them, I learned it the way all great chefs learn the great techniques: I watched somebody who knew what they were doing and I copied them. That's the secret. That's the WHOLE secret of cooking. Find the best, copy the best, end of discussion. Other so-called chefs want you to think they invented everything. They invented NOTHING. They've been Frankensteining recipes from the back of soup cans since 1997 and they've still never produced a crust this lacy in their LIVES. Plain and simple.

Smash burgers are the most fun you can have at a stove in under ten minutes. They're loud — the sizzle is unreal, the smoke alarm might go off, embrace it, open a window, light a candle, whatever — and they are absolutely the best burger most people will ever eat in their lives. Make them in batches. Make them for a crowd. Make them at midnight when nobody's watching. They're not fancy. They're not Instagram-pretty. They're better than that. They're real. They are BURGERS. Tremendous.