Brent Young, owner of Brooklyn’s Meat Hook butcher shop, shows us how unsold butcher scraps are used to craft juicy burgers at his restaurant Cozy Royale. Grilling up to 650 patties a week, the burger joint proves that customers constantly return to the comfort of a good ol’ burger time and time again. Watch as 1,200 pounds of meat are processed, ground, and grilled to make tavern-style and dry-aged burgers.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I think burgers are iconic because they're accessible.
00:04Everyone has their memory of burgers that they had growing up.
00:09They have memories of the most expensive burger that they had,
00:13the most indulgent burger that they had.
00:15Everyone identifies with them and ultimately, everyone enjoys them.
00:207.30 at the butcher shop,
00:22we got our meat delivery for the week.
00:25We're going to break everything down,
00:27set steaks for the butcher shop,
00:29get the grind ready for the burgers.
00:30Greg is our head butcher at the Meat Hook.
00:32Jade is a senior butcher at the Meat Hook.
00:35Every Tuesday, they are tasked with receiving the delivery,
00:39get it organized, start cutting retail cuts for
00:42the case and start making trim for our burgers at Cozy Royale.
00:47To break this down, it'll take us an hour to sell all of it, a few days.
00:51Absolutely everything on this table is going to be used in one way or the other.
00:54So this is about, I think all said and done,
00:57like 1,200 pounds of meat on the table right now,
00:59which is a fun workout for us at 7.30.
01:02So this is the leg that I'm breaking down.
01:04So we'll isolate a bottom round or two to make a roast beef for
01:08the deli case for the week, and then the rest will become lean trim.
01:13Yeah, so we aim for a beautiful 70-30 burger grind for the Cozy burgers.
01:18So we need nice lean muscles to isolate out of the leg to offset the fattier
01:23trims, like the short ribs and brisket, so
01:25that we can hit the fat ratio for the restaurant.
01:29Cozy and the butcher shop have a brother-sister relationship.
01:31They're both really dependent on one another at this point.
01:35And it's all very intentional from the time I started learning butchery.
01:39And I just always saw different animals as certain retail cuts, but
01:44also certain things that you would never be able to just sell out of the butcher
01:48shop, you'd have to start a restaurant in order to sell all of said animal.
01:54Charcuterie, as an example,
01:55charcuterie doesn't make any money for a butcher shop.
01:59But you do make money on it in a restaurant.
02:03So you kind of have to be strategic about where you sell things and why.
02:09When I first started cutting meat, that was the most stressful part for me.
02:12Because I'm like, how do I make sense of this pile of red on the table?
02:16But once you learn how to do it, you're aware of each muscle group,
02:21why you're pulling it, why you're treating it the way you're treating it.
02:23So you just know which ones make steaks and which ones don't.
02:26So with enough experience, muscle memory, literally, you just learn.
02:31Now we're just finishing up filling up this lugger right here for
02:35grinds for the day.
02:36This bin fits about 50 pounds of meat, so
02:40we know that that's gonna be sufficient enough to get us through the day.
02:43Add a little bit more lean, and this guy is going downstairs to the big old grinder.
02:49Corner down.
02:50I have a big old commercial grinder down here,
02:54which we can probably get close to 200 pounds in one grind.
02:57What we use for our burger grind for the shop and for
03:00the restaurant is what we call our medium grind, which is a 316th grind.
03:04We kind of feel that that gives it the perfect texture while still
03:08having it be super tender and the mouthfeel that people want.
03:11And then for the classic burger at Cozy, we'll actually grind it through twice.
03:15What that does is it just kind of incorporates the fat and
03:18the lean just a little bit more.
03:20So this is 50 pounds of ground beef trim going into the grinder.
03:24This will make about 150 burgers.
03:27So the classic will get passed through twice to give it that more homogenous look.
03:32The 316th plate is honestly is just the perfect
03:37grind to deliver exactly the mouthfeel and consistency that you're looking for.
03:44So this is the 50 pounds that will get padded up for Cozy for service tonight.
03:48And then next we'll grind through the smash burgers that will get done at a smaller die.
03:53So we'll switch the dies, get the trim out, weigh it out, and
03:56get it ready to go for tonight.
03:58So we have a small walk-in.
03:59We have small inventory, which means we have a very small dry aging program.
04:03So one of the few things that we choose to dry age is our bone-in sirloin.
04:08We'll put about two weeks of extra age on this.
04:11It'll help tenderize the muscle, so it's a big beefy flavor.
04:15But whenever we trim it up, we'll save those trimmings, and
04:17that'll go into the burger grind.
04:19So we're gonna face this section, take the bone out, and then trim it into steaks.
04:25We're gonna save all of the trimmings,
04:27because that's what's gonna make our burger grind.
04:30So this is essentially the trim that we have to work with.
04:34We have this face piece that we're just gonna take the little bit of bone up,
04:38dust it off, and then we're gonna grind it for burger.
04:41The dry-aged burger ends up being five ounces.
04:44We do a smash patty because it's fattier, and
04:48what you want out of that dry-aged flavor comes from the fat.
04:52The meat is gonna taste a little bit different, but
04:55the fat tastes radically different once it has a bit of that age on it.
04:59So you can see, once that bark goes away,
05:02everything underneath it is beautiful, beautiful meat.
05:05That picks up that nice, funky umami notes.
05:10Yeah, so I mean, this burger is over a month in the process of making, right?
05:16So that will give it its scarcity, also just super special and rich.
05:23A lot of other butcher shops will kind of hold all of their dry-aged trim for
05:28themselves, whereas we specifically will set stuff aside so
05:31that Cozy has the parts that they need.
05:34So now this will essentially go downstairs and
05:36we'll do that same process that we just did with the classic ground beef,
05:40just with this.
05:42So Cozy gets their grinds fresh every day, but
05:45just to add that next level of freshness, we'll just cryo-seal it for them.
05:50So by the time they come pick it up in a couple hours,
05:53it's still that beautiful bright red.
05:55Our burger grinds are done, so
05:56now we're gonna go to Native to grab our burger buns.
05:59Yeah, so we have this great relationship with Native Bread that we think is doing
06:04a similar style in baking as to what we're doing with butchering.
06:07And really does labor over the fine details to make
06:11what you'd think of as just pretty normal ingredients.
06:15And I think that's ultimately what we're looking for.
06:18So this is the dough that we started for
06:21potato buns for Cozy Royale, our famous handmade potato bun.
06:25This is a diving arm mixer.
06:27It's the most gentle style of mixer.
06:31It most closely mimics human hands.
06:34And this doesn't stress the dough out at all.
06:38It's almost like we're kneading by hand, but we can do 100 kilos at a time.
06:42And this is the best, in my opinion, one of the best styles of mixers for bread.
06:48So our potato dough billets, pat them out here.
06:52So the rounder divides into 36 equal pieces.
06:56So the size of the bun is determined by the weight of our dough.
07:04These are where the buns are all formed.
07:08So we have to stay inside this shape.
07:11And then the plate comes down, chops it evenly, and they get shaken up inside.
07:19The trick is you want the top to not stick to your hand, and
07:25you want the bottom to stick to the table a little bit.
07:28And then you're kind of like pushing the dough underneath, underneath, underneath.
07:35So this is a double rack oven.
07:37It fits 32 sheet pans at once.
07:42And when you're making 2,000 buns, you need something like this
07:46in order to get all those bakes in at once.
07:50It also rotates as well, so that they're evenly cooked.
07:58Smaller ovens, you would have to flip your pans around halfway through
08:03the bake to get an even bake, but this is gonna rotate.
08:08So this is gonna be a hot bake, 12 minutes, steam.
08:13We'll try to make it happen for them, if the volume's there and
08:17if it's a good relationship.
08:18These are seeded.
08:20The ones that Cozy Royale gets is same, same, but different.
08:24Same dough, no seeds.
08:26These just happen to come out first.
08:28This has to cool down slowly, gradually, before packing.
08:33It's really fragile right now.
08:36And we gotta unload the oven quickly so we don't heat up the whole bakery.
08:41So we're gonna do the same process with the plain buns without seeds.
08:46Let them cool for three hours, and then we'll bag them up.
08:51We just got our ground beef in from the shop, both regular and dry aged.
08:58He's gonna have to probably prep out 70 or 80 regular burgers for tonight.
09:02And then on the dry aged, cuz that's all we'll have for two to three days,
09:05he'll do 20 little two and a half ounce balls,
09:08just to get ready for the smash burger.
09:09Our regular patty is six ounces, so
09:12that's like the big sort of tavern style burger, if you will.
09:16This contraption sort of runs the whole restaurant, because it gives them that
09:20perfect, as you'll see with him, shape we're looking for, where it's like really
09:23a puck we're not having to hand form patties.
09:25And he can go fast, and we can do a lot, cuz we sell a lot.
09:28We might fill four or five of these,
09:31cuz we sell between 80 and 90 of the house burger a day.
09:34And right after this, he'll get into, just as part of setting up his station,
09:39rolling balls for the happy hour smash patties.
09:41So that's another 40 or 50 of those.
09:44So each week, it's about between 600 and 650 regular Cozy Royale burgers.
09:50And then another 200 to 300 happy hour burgers, and then obviously the dry aged.
09:55So a lot of this stuff, when you're in a high volume concept like this,
09:59not that the concept was high volume, but now we're just so busy.
10:01It's like a lot of labor, it's just punching fries, blanching fries,
10:05pattying burgers, rolling smash balls.
10:08It takes a lot, it's just repeating the same thing.
10:10The burger is the engine that runs Cozy, and we'll have a full rack of tickets,
10:13and each ticket is like hippie salad, that's a very popular item.
10:18And then the entrees will be a mixture, but every ticket has a burger on it.
10:22We're ready to rock and roll for tonight.
10:23This is our dry aged, these are done, done.
10:26That's all we'll have in dry aged burgers for tonight.
10:28And then we have to probably make four or five more of these, and
10:31then we'll be good for our regular burger as well.
10:33We're gonna start making our regular cheeseburger.
10:35This is our six ounce cheeseburger that's on the menu all the time,
10:38starting with a six ounce patty from the meat hook ground this morning.
10:42Very simple seasoning, just a healthy dose of salt, and right on the grill here.
10:50So this is the potato roll from Native that we use just for
10:53our house, our regular cheeseburger.
10:54Hit it on the wheel, this is all butter in here, and
10:56then we're just gonna let those buns toast off for like a minute or so.
11:00This is Cooper's Sharp White, which is like a classic American cheese brand
11:05that will really remind you of like your mom bringing home a quarter pound of
11:08cheese sliced at a grocery store deli, not Kraft Singles.
11:12We wanna make sure the cheese melts fully, but
11:14doesn't start like a little bubbling's okay, you get a little bit of color.
11:18All right, so this is our dry aged burger.
11:20It's like a double stack sort of smash burger.
11:24You know, dry aging means that you're losing all of that moisture content, so
11:28that your actual fat has less moisture to it, so it's harder.
11:33So if you do a tavern style grind on the dry age,
11:37like it can be toothsome, which is a nice way of saying like, tough.
11:42So this way, make sure that you cook it like almost all the way through, but
11:45smash style, so it's like medium, but all of the fat is getting fully rendered out.
11:50We use raclette on this, and I'm just gonna throw it right on the grill.
11:54That burger is like the complete opposite end of the spectrum from our tavern burger.
12:02It is meant to just be a punch in the jaw of flavor.
12:07The two and a half ounce patties, they render out, so the whole thing like
12:11is five ounces, but like you can really actually slam it pretty quickly.
12:18But the little bit of spice from the rouille, the tartness from the onions,
12:21the sweetness from the bacon jam, and really the beefiness of that dry age flavor
12:29just punches you, you're done, drink your beer, go home.
12:33Bacon jam.
12:35Yeah, we make this bacon jam,
12:36it's basically just like fully rendered out small bacon lardons.
12:39And then we caramelize a ton of white onion, deglaze with some vinegar, and
12:44then just sort of cook it down, cook it down, cook it down.
12:47That's actually the most deluxe element, it's like there's a bunch of bacon on it.
12:51And there you go.
12:53Cozy's meant to be a neighborhood tavern.
12:56You would want to come to every week, a corner bar,
12:59you would bump into other friends, neighbors, meet your friends there.
13:05I don't know that a menu needs to have a burger on it, and it's a,
13:09it honestly is a very conscious choice for
13:12a restaurant to do it, because burgers will dominate your menu.
13:16People love burgers, and if you do a great one,
13:19people are really gonna come out for that great one.
13:22And a lot of chefs, frankly, have a tip on their shoulder, and
13:26they want to cook the food that they want to cook, and they don't want to
13:30necessarily cook the food that a lot of customers really want,
13:34which is, on a Tuesday night, they want a freaking cheeseburger.