Burgers cooked rare

Bill2673

Seen this letter in the Irish Times today:

My understanding of the situation is that where steak is concerned, only that part of the steak that has been exposed to air is subject to bacteria/ contamination or whatever (sorry am not an expert on this)....

And therefore this why you can eat a steak rare but shouldn't eat a burger rare....

I thought this was fairly basic hygiene/ safety.....ia burger doesn't need to be cooked into oblivion as he suggest below, but it does need to be cooked through.

Whereas a steak can be eaten 'bleu' but not eaten raw....

Am i wrong......if not why does the Irish Times publish letters like this....

Warning over rare beefburgers

• 
  Madam, – Your Editorial regarding the export of food and drink is welcome. There is no doubting the quality of many Irish foods – vegetables, cheeses, fish, seafood, and beef, for example. Yet in the same issue you report that the HSE is threatening to close down a restaurant which does not burn its burgers into leathery oblivion (Home News, January 18th).
  Apparently it may be dangerous, the jobsworths say, to serve medium or rare beefburgers. Have they gone mad? Surely it must follow, should such an idiotic policy be taken seriously, that we would no longer be able to enjoy steak tartare, and eventually ribeye à point, marinaded scallops, pink lamb, or barely cooked tuna in the Irish Republic.
  Imagine what French, German, Dutch, or even English tourists would think of that.
  The logic employed by the HSE is bizarre. The onus is on the producers to produce healthy food; not the restaurateurs to cremate the produce just in case they may be some nasty bacteria lurking within. If the Food Safety Authority of Ireland can’t do its job in enforcing standards within the producing industry then its bosses should be sacked. – Yours, etc,
  WILL HORBURY,
  Drimoleague, Co Cork.

irish_goat

It doesn't nessecarily need to be cooked at all if the meat is fresh and handled/stored properly prior to serving. Steak tartare i.e raw mince is ok for most people to eat, so an uncooked/rare burger is acceptable.

Hogzy

Its usually covering your own ass to be honest. One in every hundred might have bacteria that your stomach couldnt handle. A bit of cooking will do the trick with that.

If i make my own burders i usually like them to be slightly pink in the middle. They taste much better IMO

irish_goat

Hogzy wrote: »

Its usually covering your own ass to be honest. One in every hundred might have bacteria that your stomach couldnt handle. A bit of cooking will do the trick with that.

100%, even a rumour of food poisoning is enough to sink a restaurant so they'll not want to take the risk.

Mr. Presentable

Will Horbury is talking ar5e to be fair. You cannot compare a cut of tuna where the bacteria will occur on the outside ( and thus subject to cooking ) surface, with a ball of minced food where the surface bacteria have been churned all the way through it.

If he wants rare burgers then he should go to a restaurant that will mince the beef to order (as they would for a tartare, for example).

I bet when he gets food poisoning he'd be at the solicitor's door within the hour.

Adelie

It's not really clear from the original news article whether the HSE has a problem with any restaurant serving rare burgers, or that this particular restaurant doesn't comply to their safety standards. Anyone know?

clio_16v

As far as I'm aware burgers can only be cooked rare etc when the mincing is done in-house to order. Then it's acceptable. If the restaurant buys in mince then it's in breach of Health and Safety or whatever

smiles302

The French generally cook their burgers medium or rare. A few restaurants near us used to but can't any more.
It's more of a better safe than sorry rule than a hard-fast rule.

The Hill Billy

There is a world of a difference between steak tartare & the mince in a burger. I enjoy the former occasionally here in Switzerland where it is a common enough dish on many menus. But there's no way I'd touch a rare burger back home. I just wouldn't have enough trust in the provenance of the meat & how it was treated between the slaughterhouse & my plate.

hucklebuck

The HSE are spot on and the guy that wrote to the paper is talking out his (_*_), a cut of meat, lamb, fillet steak etc are fine to be served rare, ie cook the meat on it's surface area. Minced meat we have here is minced before it is packed and by virtue of it being minced and possibly not refrigerated for a while after would allow the bacteria from the original surface area multiply, then you get it a few days later and by not cooking it through(to a light brown or darker in the middle) the risk is the bacteria in the middle is not killed and the heat from the outside causes it to multiply.

Think how many times you are told to have cooked meat on shelves above raw meat/poultry, this is incase the bacteria drips onto the cooked meat.

Steak tartan is made from a decent cut of meat, prepared(minced) in the restaurant and served, once the restaurants hygene is up to scratch there is a very low risk of food poisoning.

Where the dangers are with bacteria is when cooked food comes in contact with cold food, think egg mayo in your toasted sandwich, that is why you are supposed to put the mayo on after you toast it as it is a much lower risk of food poisoning.

My advice is cook your burgers through, I don't think a marginally nicer burger is worth 2 days puking and plopping!! If you are worried about them not being as juicy just break an egg into your mince and make your burger - delicious!!

Hope this helps

whiteonion

I sometimes eat half a kg of minced meat raw because I can't be bothered cocking it. Never suffered any ill effects.

Mellor

irish_goat wrote: »

It doesn't nessecarily need to be cooked at all if the meat is fresh and handled/stored properly prior to serving. Steak tartare i.e raw mince is ok for most people to eat, so an uncooked/rare burger is acceptable.

The problem here is that you obviously don't know what steak tartare is and the difference between it and mince is huge in this context.

the beer revolu

Mellor wrote: »

The problem here is that you obviously don't know what steak tartare is and the difference between it and mince is huge in this context.

Surely there is a context for burger meat to be treated the same way as tartare and hence cooked rare.

Last time I made burgers, I eared the meat quickly, then chopped it, then cooked it rare. Nice!

I've been told that US tourists often insist that there must be something with a restaurant's meat if they refuse to cook a burger rare.

Mellor

Tartar isn't just mince, its steak freshy minced.
This method is fine for making rare burgers. (this should be obvious top any one with a bit of sense).
I never said rare burgers were all bad. I said there is a difference between mince and taratre that is critical.

Making rare burgers from off the shelf mince is pretty dumb

snickerpuss

There was a follow up article about places that serve their burgers medium and discussing Jo'Burger which was the place in question. I had a lovely medium lamb burger there a while ago and nothing happened to me, I do have an iron stomach though! Anyway they said...

Jo’burger in Rathmines, Dublin, which opened three years ago, has always offered customers a choice when it comes to how their burgers are cooked, with the medium-rare and rare options proving popular, especially with the weekend trade. The meat in its burgers, sourced from Dublin butcher Pat McLoughlin, is fully traceable. The burgers are shaped by hand on the premises using 100 per cent beef.

“The meat is delivered here fresh every day and made into today’s burgers; that’s the way it works,” says owner Joe Macken. “We’ve been giving customers the option to eat burgers whatever way they choose since we opened, with no issues.”

Macken was always aware of concerns held by some about undercooked mince, and before the HSE’s warning a disclaimer on the menu read: “We will serve your burger as you request it, rare to well-done. Rare and medium burgers are undercooked. Note eating of undercooked or raw meat may lead to food-borne illness.”

The disclaimer didn’t stop an environmental-health officer writing to Macken to demand that he stop offering rare or medium-rare burgers unless he could prove there were no safety issues.

In a statement this week, Macken said he considered this “over-regulation”, but nevertheless Jo’burger has removed its disclaimer and now serves all of its burgers medium to well done. It is fully compliant with the HSE advice.

Full article anseo: Irish Times - 'Burger restaurants get a grilling about serving rare meat'

TaraFoxglove

I'd just like to weigh in here.

Freshly minced mince eaten quickly is fine, this is why things like steak tartare can be fine to eat.

But I would eat mince that wasn't freshly minced rare.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

fecking HSE, ruining my jo'burger experience. can i not take the risks and get a medium-rate blue cheese?

Bottle_of_Smoke

I wonder if you took 100 people eating a medium/rare burger made from mince with some minor contamination how many would feel any negative effects.

Sure those with weaker immune systems would be in trouble but the average person I'd say vast majority would be fine.

HungryJoey

It was only the other day in Elephant & Castle we ordered burgers and were asked how we would like it cooked, much to our suprise. We ordered well done, just to be safe :pac: