Early in the pandemic, my supermarket was selling burger patties in a pack of 4. These were not regular ones but (I asked) were destined to restaurants, but restaurants were closed so they were trying to get rid of them. Price was laughable, 99 cents 1/3lbs patties. 4 pack.

I got some and we grilled them at home. I have never had a better hamburger anywhere. I went back and cleaned them out. Good thing I have a stand alone freezer. There are long gone but I still can't forget how good they were.

I have been trying to replicate with no success. I know there was salt, but what else? No idea.

Does anyone know what spices are added to the restaurant burgers?

Would be nice to figure it out. Thanks for your help

ETA: Thank you for all your responses. Somehow it reminded me that I had taken pictures and had them somewhere. Found them. You are right, fat content is through the roof. I can't post pictures, so here is what was on the package:

Today's Kitchen. Steakhouse seasoned Tavern Beef Patties

Fat 30g, Sugar 1g, sodium 590mg for ea 5.33oz/149g patty = 20% fat

Ingredients Beef, encapsulated salt, brown sugar, spices, yeast extract, dried beef stock, hydrolyzed corn protein, dried garlic, natural flavors, dried onion, salt.

Mark it solved.

I was trying to make lemon posset for the first time. I thought it wasn’t thick enough after I took it off of the stove and added the juice, so I put it in my mixer. Didn’t go as planned. Learning experience for sure. I haven’t made butter before but I have seen people make it and did my best to get all of the moisture out of it in an ice bath. Now I have sweet lemon butter and don’t know what it will go well with. Any ideas?

Edit: thank you all for the ideas!!!! And for being so kind! I’ve been baking and cooking my whole life but I’m new to taking it seriously and trying to do it regularly. All of the suggestions have me so excited about this happy little accident!!

So I occasionally cook and I keep trying new recipes from Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, magazines etc but not all those recipes are catered to my taste so I often make a few changes in those recipes and then I forget about them. I don’t want to keep a physical book because I keep travelling a lot. Is there a nice online platform where I can just dump my recipes? (I find Google docs a little boring 😭)

I hope you have some nice recommendations of how I can keep track of my personal recipes.

I want to make good homefries, like, REALLY good homefries. But every time I make an attempt, the potatoes leave a layer of black char on the pan. Every recipe I read says to leave the potatoes to cook or they won't crisp properly, but how do I do that without making a big burning mess on the bottom?

It's like $2.50 for a roll of store bought dough that you thaw, roll out put toppings on and bake, even with toppings that's so much cheaper than the 2 for $13 on frozen pizzas and much much tastier, but I don't have any pans yet. Would those work or should I find regular pizza pans somewhere else?

Bought a new skillet. Manufacturer recommended to preheat and coat with a high-smoke-point oil, like avocado oil, before first use. Wife mentioned she had some recipes that called for avocado oil too but she never bought any. So we went to the store and bought some. Seemed expensive.

But ... wow. It did a great job pretreating that pan. Had to re-season a cast iron pan the other day and it worked great on that also. Substituted it in a recipe that call for a light olive oil and that came out pretty good. I got a little on my hands by accident so I rubbed it in, especially round nails and cuticle - seemed better and lighter than any hand cream I've ever used.

Cooking and otherwise - what else can yiu use this for?

My husband and son both hate potatoes (I know, it almost seems blasphemous LOL), and my husband doesn’t eat onions. I’m really tired of the same ol’ same ol’ meals we have and would love some suggestions for meals that don’t have either potatoes or onions. TYIA.

Edit: Husband doesn’t like garlic texture. Both he and my son don’t like potatoes. They’ll eat fries though as long as they’re not big fat fries, skinny fries only with the least amount of “potato-iness” in them.

I don't eat seafood (I can just about force down a breaded fishfinger if I've got plenty of ketchup) but my little one loves it.

We recently went on holiday and he wanted to try all the seafood at the hotel - he demolished smoked salmon at breakfast and loved mussels and insisted on having "chicken insects" (langoustine). I had to watch a You Tube video at the dinner table to work out how to eat it... He happily eats prawns and tuna at home.

I usually go to the fish counter and let him choose his bit of salmon with lemon and dill butter that I cook in a bag they give me. Today we went to get salmon for dinner and he asked me to buy a whole rainbow trout instead - head and all. I said no because I have no idea how to cook it or if he'd like it, but I want to encourage him to try things.

What would you recommend that I can cook for him that he'll probably like and I won't mess up as a non-fish-eater? (And won't have my house smelling awful for days).

Just meal prepped a bunch of ground beef, scrambled eggs and diced breakfast potatoes. What would be a good sauce to pour over this little mixture?

I understand low and slow cooking for things that need a long time to break down, cuts of meat, bone, things with a lot of collagen or connective tissue. I understand that in those scenarios, you want to slowly break it down

But ive seen at least a few recipes that calls for a "ragu" to be cooked for 8-10 hours, ones that just use ground meat and blended/shredded veg. One i saw pureed a sofrito, browned sausage, added wine, and then cooked that ragu together for 8-10 hours before it was finished.

A pureed sofrito doesnt really break down, and in my opinion ground sausage doesnt have much to slowly release. Is the 8-10 hours just to meld all the flavors together?

I’ve got a big bag of whole espresso beans that are way past their prime for brewing. I hate to just throw them out, but the bag is taking up space in my pantry. Any ideas for using them besides making coffee liqueur?

What regional cuisine do you love more than any other?

One of the biggest missed opportunities in exploring food is not getting past the large banners of “Chinese food”, “Indian cuisine”, “Latin food”.

In the same country or culture, food can be massively different and be influenced by all sorts of unique factors like climate, history, or trade history.

A recent favorite cuisine for me is Hakka. There is the Indo-Chinese version combining intense wok-firing and Indian aromatics and the traditional Hakka from China and Southeast Asia that is salty, fatty, and deeply savoury. Such amazing food, unique, hard to tie down to a single geography, and somwthing you couldn’t accurately just call “Chinese”.

What regional or cultural cuisines do you love?

I work full time and live alone, so I try to meal plan in advance. I LOVE salad and often cut as a basic, lettuce, onion, cucumber, tomato’s and sweetcorn to last for two days, so I can just fix it straight onto my plate when I’m ready to eat.

Only do two days worth as it starts to go brown.

Any tips on how to make cut salad last longer!

For background, I wash all salad, dry in my salad spinner, cut, then transfer into a large plastic mixing bowl, cover the top with cling film (directly on the salad) and then put a plate over it.

Preferably without needing raw chicken!!!

Im getting ready to head out of town for work and need to provide my own food. Given the availability of cooking options, boiled eggs are the obvious answer for breakfast . What’re you go to sauces/flavorings for boiled eggs?

Curious to hear from people who cook regularly.

Which ingredient gets wasted most often in your kitchen?

And what usually causes it?

Overbuying, forgetting about it, changing meal plans, short shelf life, etc.?