Too Hot to Grill Outside

...but I had a pound of hamburger that I wanted to make into burgers.  My attempts at pan frying burgers have been disappointing so I googled it.  Score!  I found the recipe here.  I made mine this way:

1 lb.  80/20 ground beef
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, or to taste
Fine sea salt*

Sprinkle a scant teaspoon of fine sea salt into a large, heavy frying pan on medium high heat.  While pan is heating mix ground beef, onion, garlic and pepper together.  Shape into four patties.

When pan is hot, shake to disburse salt evenly on bottom.  Place patties in pan.  After 3 minutes, remove patties from pan, shake pan to redistribute salt and return patties to pan, uncooked side down.  Cook another 3 minutes or until desired doneness.

This worked perfectly for me.  I used heat setting 5 on my cook top (on a scale of 10-1) and to really test this I was using a heavy stainless steel frying pan.  No oil.  There was almost no sticking because of the science involved and the burger has a lovely crust on it.

Ha!  The science is that the salt draws the moisture out of the meat but because the pan is hot the burger is immediately seared, trapping the distributed moisture inside the burger.  My burger had just a tiny bit of pink in the middle, just how I like it. And I had sourdough bread for a bun.  Fabulous.

* I cooked two burgers in a large pan.  Next time I will try it in a smaller non-stick pan just to test it to see if the outside will get crusty but with a smaller pan I will reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon.

Hooray, again, for Science!  I'm calling these Burgers Supreme!

***edited 08/14/12*** I made a burger in the nonstick pan and it didn't get as crispy and tasted saltier.