Pimp That Snack

Perfect Burger

by Tanya and James 7 photos Rated 86% 702 votes when voting closed

A simple burger is no good when you’re marvin for some real snacky satisfaction. A chance meeting with a round loaf in Asda, a flash of inspiration that it looked *really* like a burger bun (only in brown bread, which is obviously healthy and cancels the lard factor) and bada bing… the burgerperfect was born. A 6x scaled version of the quarter pounder.

A large round seeded loaf still bagged with its Asda bakery label, on a wooden worktop

The ‘burger bun’ that inspired it all.

Firstly, we listed the things a good burger must have (basing it loosely on Burger King’s ‘bacon double cheese’ but adding vegetation again, in a lard-cancelling capability).

– meat
– more meat (bacon)
– cheese
– a bun
– vegetation
– relish
– mayo

Onion rings were pondered, but we forgot to buy them.

Behold – the raw ingredients!

Ingredients on the worktop: bacon, cheese slices, eggs, a lettuce, tomato, finger rolls and the seeded loaf

Sadly, the mayo and relish didn’t make it into the shot, and we have some spurious finger rolls and olive oil. Actually, the olive oil was used to fry the burger, so ok, it can stay in.

The burger was basically 703g of Asda’s finest lean beef steak mince, combined with an egg and stirred up, then moulded lovingly into the biggest beef patty I had ever had the joy of making. It was a bit sloopy but this was solved by coating it in flour (not pictured) before frying.

A single burger patty as wide as the frying pan, browning on the gas hob

The monster…. nearly 3/4 of a kilo of MEAT. Oh yeah. It took about 20 minutes to fry, and turning it required manual dexterity and two spatulas.

The next step was to prepare the peripherals so that the burger would have somewhere to go when it got out of the pan.

Assembly underway: bun halves spread with relish, cooked bacon, lettuce and tomato, mayonnaise piped over the base

The loaf was cut into three so as to facilitate the maximum cheese melting area. We contemplated having two thin burgers, but figured one thick one would be simpler (oh lazy, lazy us).

All layers were spread copiously with Bick’s burger relish, then the bottom layer was padded out with iceberg lettuce, a few slices of tomato (which looked really pitiful – we should have used one of those beef tomato things they fry up at greasy spoons) and a liberal lacing of mayo. This was to be the ‘bed’ for the burger.

The bacon was fried to within an inch of its life, and the cheese slices were released from their packaging. More salady-goodness was prepared for the upper layer, but not installed because it would have slipped off when layering the burger.

The stack part-built, two patties and melted cheese slices between thick bun layers on a plate

First attempt. Note lack of salad but overkill on the cheese. We used eight slices per layer. The top has the bacon in, but the bottom layer salad is dwarfed by the mighty burger.

Finished double-decker burger with bacon, cheese, lettuce and tomato, overhanging a whole dinner plate

Quick! More salad, nurse! The burger takes on the familiar – my god I’m hungry – layout. Oh yes. This is a mighty burger.

The finished burger beside a tall glass of lager, standing about as tall as the glass

It’s on a dinner plate, and that’s a microwave to the right for scale. Oh yes. Mmmmmmm. And I ate it ALL myself. Over three meals.

I dread to think how many calories, but it’s about 6 times the size of a big mac, which has 493 calories, so this might have around 3000 calories in it.

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