Skip pre-ground beef for great burgers

When you're dealing with the king of persnickety cooking, you expect a little hassle for your food. You also expect big-time payoff.

The good news? Christopher Kimball, the man behind the pleasantly obsessive-compulsive wing of the food world - Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines - delivers on both counts. In fact, for a burger as good as Kimball offered up for the AP's 20 Burgers of Summer series, I'd suffer twice the hassle.

No pre-ground beef is harmed in the making of these burgers. Kimball starts with sirloin steak tips and boneless beef short ribs, which are chilled until firm in the freezer, then coarsely ground in a food processor. This produces burgers that are tender, meaty and incredibly moist.

Hands down, they are the best hamburger I have ever eaten. Ever.

"This style of burger is nothing like most modern burgers," Kimball says. "It is rich, thin, craggy, crusty, salty and comes with an incredible sauce. Instead of a softball of meat, you are getting a modest layer of intensely flavored beef and a classic roadhouse burger sauce."

True to form, you earn that goodness with a fussy method for making it. The meat is barely handled, and never gets packed into a patty. The process is more of a gentle shaping of the chopped meat, which is on a tray, not in your hands.

The raw burgers (and the cooked ones, for that matter) are delicate, so it's important to follow Kimball's method carefully. And he adds that the cooked burgers don't hold well. So if you're doubling the recipe, cook the burgers in batches and serve them immediately before frying the next batch.