Bone Marrow Beef Burger. Can I improve on perfection?

I thought I had it right. I was pretty sure that I couldn’t do any better. When I got my hands on some (rare breed, grass fed) Belted Galloway, coarse ground beef and made burgers with three ingredients, I knew that I had created burger patty perfection. That was another one ticked off the bucket list. I had eaten the perfect burger. Or, at least I thought I had.

We had been chatting about restaurant trends. One of the lads was scoffing the concept of bone marrow, served in the bone, as they do in pretentious restaurants. That got me thinking. Marrow has a lovely unctuous texture as well as a lot of beefy flavour. What if we were to add it to burger mince? I had to bide my time. As soon as I was able to get my hands on some more Belted Galloway mince, I persuaded my butcher to give me some marrow bones too. This added a fourth ingredient to my list.

The list of ingredients is pretty thin, despite the fatty mince.

Ingredients for Perfect Bone Marrow Burgers

• 2 kilos of prime Belted Galloway mince*
• 200 grammes of bone marrow
• Black pepper to taste
• Smoked sea salt to

* When I say prime mince, I don’t mean lean. Burgers need fat for flavour. So, I suggest a burger with about 15%  fat content. It sounds like a lot, but, it isn’t. Just don’t eat them every day or your cardiologist will start sending me commission.

The fun bit of this is getting the marrow out of the bones. I used a spoon. You might need to warm the bones a bit to loosen the marrow.

Don’t be put off by the appearance or method. It’s delicious!

Poke and scrape out the full 200 grammes of marrow. You can make a necklace out of the bones.

The marrow came out very easily. It does feel a bit weird.

The marrow has a strange fatty consistency. It sticks to the knife like glue. Chop it up nice and small. It will need to be mixed with the mince.

It can be left reasonably coarse as it will melt into the meat.

Place the mince into a large bowl and add the marrow. Season to your own taste. Do bear in mind that there are no other seasonings bar salt and pepper. Not too little, not too much.

If this photo is any help, that’s as much seasoning as I used.

Mix the mince by hand. The texture will be ruined if you use a machine.

It’s hard work but worth it. Mix it well.

Shape the mixture into 250 gramme patties. It doesn’t need to be exact. But, it helps if they are all about the same size. I used a pastry ring to shape mine.

Consistency in a world gone mad! All roughly the same size.

I cooked them without any added fat (they certainly didn’t need it!) until medium rare. It is perfectly safe to do this with freshly ground beef.

You can see the lumps of marrow. Delicious!

As the burger cooks, the marrow melts into the meat. This gives a delicious texture and added beef flavour (as if it needed it). I am now 100% convinced that I have devised the perfect burger.

A little smoked salt is all it needs…

If you are contemplating beef burger perfection, you will need access to high quality, grass fed, rare breed beef. The cattle need to have enjoyed a good life. They need to have been slaughtered professionally, with the minimum of stress and the meat needs to be handled well by the butchers. That way, you will have excellent meat. If you want to make the truly perfect burger, you will need the marrow too. It is so tasty!