BURGER MADNESS!

I make my own burgers, but I can understand that pre-packaged might suit people better in some circumstances.

My only quibble would be that I'd be reluctant to cook any pre-packaged ground meat to medium. I'm someone who loves a medium rare burger, don't get me wrong, but if I haven't ground the meat myself or saw a butcher do it on the day I'm prepping the burgers then I don't think it's a great idea from a hygiene point of view.

In every country, including Ireland, tests generally show that there is E Coli present in a proportion of pre-packed ground meat. The FSAI reckon it's under 10% in Ireland, which is better than most countries.

It's not an issue when the meat is cooked through in a bolognese or similar, but if you shape it into a burger and serve it medium then you're rolling the dice somewhat.

They do a great smoked brisket burger pack as well, I forgot about those. Very pungent.

In Ireland I think sometimes there is a mentality that quality of beef means steak in the name, so my mum would be dreadful for buying lean steak pieces or getting steak ground, even if she's making a burger or a Bolognese. But obviously in actuality what if you break down what is resulting in a 'good burger' it's likely a high fat content is the determining factor in most of it (Forget using steaks you'd pan fry). It'll be required for an effective maillard reaction in a pan or on a grill, and most importantly for the burger to remain moist when it's cooked through.

In terms of how much fat percentage you ideally want... I suspect it's at least 15-20% but when it comes to exceptionally good off the shelf burgers from FXB, M&S etc I would suspect in practical terms it's even higher. I say 15-20% because if in a busy week you're buying mince off the shelf then basically you'd want to go for the highest fat content mince available, and that's what it is. Otherwise, a chat with the butcher and something like the Nal's combo above seems sensible!

For this reason as regards the bison burgers, although I would be really curious to try them, I'd like to know how lean they are! One of the worst things I've ever eaten in my life was a super lean ostrich burger. Almost zero fat, just acres of pallid, rubbery white flesh, yuck.

The other thing that caught my eye above are the rib cap burgers... That's quite a mad one. Rib cap / spinalis dorsi is the little mega-tasty roll on the edge of a rib eye and if you were to be lucky enough to be able to buy a big piece of rib cap to cook like a steak then it would cost you about 40 euro for two. Higgins briefly did it a few years ago. The reason it's not commonly seen for sale is that usually butchers will just leave it on a piece of rib beef and sell the whole thing intact. If you take off the rib cap the rest of the pieces becomes odd. So these rib cap burgers... Unusual, from the name certainly sounds like rib eye trimmings anyway, I'd say would be tasty.