Preventing a Burnt Burger Patty when Pan Frying (Explained)

How Do You Fully Cook a Burger in A Frying Pan without Burning It on The Outside?

While using a traditional pan and stove, the temperature can’t be measured. So, monitoring the heat becomes very important. It does not always become perfect the first time but with practice, you can easily make the best burger.

The Author

A Burger, a short form of hamburger, is a sandwich consisting of a cutlet between two slices of bread.

It is a well-known food in western countries.

There are many brands involved in just making delicious burgers, and such is the popularity of this food.

It is one of the common breakfasts that Germans want to have, along with a cup of cappuccino.

Most people prepare a burger at home, and some prefer having it in a restaurant or snack outlet.

Generally, restaurants use a griller to make the petty or cutlet, but some people use a pan at home to make the petty.

There are certain things to be considered while making a burger in the pan.

Preparation of petty

A petty is made of chicken, beef, or potato. Let us consider chicken here for our burger.

Chicken is first semi-boiled and then meshed in a bowl.

Egg, onion, sauce, salt, and pepper is poured into the meshed chicken and then mixed properly to make a dough.

A small piece is taken from the dough and gives a flat round shape.

These flat pieces are then stored in the fridge for an hour for the mixture to settle and become hard.

Now, take a spoon of butter or olive oil in a pan and then allow it to heat.

Once the butter is mildly heated, reduce the flame and put 1-4 patties in the pan.

Cover the pan for two mins, and after two mins, uncover to switch the sides of the petty.

Allow it to get itself cooked for 10 mins and then switch the sides again. Keep the pan covered most of the time.

Else all moistures may evaporate, and petty may become sticky to the pan’s surface.

After switching, cook for another 5 mins, and the petty is ready. Keep the stove on low-medium flame for the whole process.

If applied heat is high and time is not constrained, there are high chances that the petty might get burnt.

So, adjust the heat, so that petty remains red-brownish after cooking and not black.

Remove all the patties from the pan and store them in a hotpot where petty will remain hot until loaves of bread are prepared.

Preparation of burger

As the petty is now ready, it’s time for the preparation of loaves of bread.

If you are a good multitasker, bread can be prepared simultaneously while the petty is fried.

Choose the fresh round bread having some garnishing at the top.

This makes the burger a little more delicious. Cut the burger into two pieces in a transverse section.

Now take a spoon of butter in a pan and allow it to melt and heat.

Once heated, put the cut sides of the two pieces in the butter and allow to heat, press the loaves of bread with a flat spoon to get heated evenly.

Cook for 5 mins in low-medium flame and remove. Do not turn the hard outer side of bread to cook in the butter.

This will spoil the shape of the burger and may hamper the taste as well.

Now take a slice of bread and apply mayonnaise on the cut side and repeat the same for another piece as well.

After that put the petty on the cut side of a flat slice of the burger.

For garnishing, add some sauce over petty, add a cheese slice, add a slice of lettuce, add a slice of tomato, sprinkle some salt and pepper, add any other topping of your favorite.

Now, close the burger with the other slice of bread and heat again in a pan from the flat side, for the cheese slice to melt.

Once melted, an utterly delicious burger is ready to fill the mouth.

Add some sauces if needed while eating for some extra punches to the burger.

Things to take care of while making a burger in a pan

There are certain things to keep in mind while making a burger in a pan.

If you are cooking a chicken burger, make sure to boil the chicken only for 5 mins and not more than that.

Cooking for more time will lose the cohesiveness of chicken and may not remain intact while making dough.

So, monitoring the heat and cooking time are very important.

If the chicken is frozen before use, bring it to normal temperature before starting the process. Otherwise, loss of taste might be felt.

Once flat petty is prepared from the dough, make sure to put it in a deep freezer.

As much as low the temperature is, better is the bond of petty. Cooling time also affects to some extent.

If you are over keeping petty in the fridge, it might become frozen and lose taste, and keeping for less time may cause the petty to break while frying.

Although frying of petty makes the most of a tasty burger, analyzing the heat applied in it while frying and turning the sides, is very important.

If you slip off any of the parameters, there is a high chance that your burger may burn outside.

Final Thought

Making a burger in a pan is not as easy as in a griller. Griller always has a certain temperature limit that we want to keep in.

It also has a specified time which is known to the cook, required for making a burger.

While using a traditional pan and stove, the temperature can’t be measured. So, monitoring the heat becomes very important.

It does not always become perfect the first time but with practice, you can easily make the best burger.

Well sometimes it depends upon the eater as well, because some people want crispy petty inside the burger, and some want soft.

So, frying the petty in a pan should be as per the eater.

Some people may prefer to have the burger without the bread being heated as it brings a different taste to the burger.

So, the taste of a burger is always an entity that is considered to cook a burger.