If you've ever hosted a big cookout, you've probably experienced the overwhelming feeling of being chained to your grill, flipping burger after burger, and sweating from the heat of the smoke. It renders you incapable of enjoying your guests, and you're lucky if you ever get to eat one of the burgers you've been slaving over.
Enter chef Tim Love, a "Top Chef" alum, all-around spectacular chef and host of this summer's CNBC food show "Restaurant Kickstart." Just in time for grilling season, Love stopped by HuffPost Live to school us on burgers and share a tip that'll prevent us all from ever having to experience another panicked moment at the grill.
"The hardest thing for people to conceptualize when you're grilling is to grill the food before people arrive to your party. That's true for steaks, burgers, it doesn't matter what it is. You should grill it to one temperature below what you like, let it rest and sit, and it can sit for 4 hours at room temperature this way. When people come in, just pop it in the oven or put it on that top rack of the grill, it's very important. The rack that everybody throws away and doesn't know how to use, that's actually used to finish meat."
See folks? It's that easy. And if you're questioning whether you can let cooked meat sit for four hours at room temperature, trust him -- he's right. The HAACP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) guidelines for food safety state that food is safe from bacteria growth between the temperatures of 41 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit for up to four hours. (Any longer than that, though, and you should toss it.)
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