In Goodness Gracious Me style, I decided to “Make it at home for nothing”. This recipe however, does not contain aubergines.

Buns

You can buy decent buns in the supermarket so skip this bit if you wish, but homemade buns are delicious and aren’t that taxing. They take time but are easy to make. It’s about five hours from start to finish.

235g strong white bread flour plus a bit more for dusting.
200ml water
20g milk
1tsp dried yeast
10g of caster sugar
5g salt
25g unsalted butter, in small cubes and fridge cold
2 eggs: 1 for the dough, 1 for glazing
Sesame seeds

Step 1: Making the dough and first prove

Weigh out the butter and then cut it into small cubes. Put it back in the fridge to stay cold.

In a small bowl add the water and milk and microwave for 25 seconds so that it’s warm. Add the sugar and yeast, mix and leave for about five minutes so that the yeast can get to work. It should be frothy when you come back to it.

In a larger bowl weigh out the flour and salt. Add the cubed butter and rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Once the yeast is frothy in the smaller bowl, add an egg to it and beat lightly. Tip the contents of the smaller bowl in the bigger bowl and mix it together until the flour is incorporated. It will be wet and sludgy at this point. Don’t worry, it’s supposed to look like that.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for ten minutes. Resist the urge to add more flour unless you are five minutes in and it really doesn’t seem any less sticky than at the start. Once kneaded place it back in the large bowl and cover with an oiled sheet of cling film. Cover the top with a clean tea towel and leave somewhere warm to prove for a couple of hours or longer. It’s ready once it has doubled in size. Your kitchen counter is probably not the best place unless it’s the middle of summer. A warm cupboard is best. Or failing that, cover it with a duvet. Really. It works.

Shaping and second prove

Once the dough has doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and weigh it. Divide the dough into four equal size pieces and place on a lightly floured surface. Flatten each ball and then gather the edges in to the centre so that when you turn it over, it is smooth. Roll gently into a ball and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Repeat with the other three pieces of dough. Space them apart so that they have about 3cm between each ball and the edges of the baking tray as they will expand. Use multiple trays if necessary. They need to prove again but this time you can leave them in the kitchen if you wish. Cover either with oiled cling film, a clean archive box or a clean bin bag that you fill with air and tie at the end. They need another two hours to prove.

Bake

Near the end of the two hour second prove, heat your oven to 200c. When it comes up to temperature, place a roasting tray or an oven safe bowl filled with boiling water in the bottom of your oven. This will create steam and give you a soft crumb and a chewy exterior.

Beat the second egg and then gently brush each bun with egg-wash taking care to to cover the entirety of the top of the bun but without letting it drip down the sides. If it does drip down, you’ll end up with an eggy crust around the bun which while it can be cut off, spoils the finish a little.

Cook the buns for between 12 and 15 minutes depending on your oven. Take a look at 12 minutes and if they look the right colour, remove to a wire rack to cool. Don’t cut them straight open or they will fall apart.

Bigish Mac sauce

While your buns are in the oven you can start on the sauce. Wait. You are making your own buns aren’t you? What do you mean you aren’t as crazy as me and that you have better things to do with five hours? Oh.

The first recipe I tried was Gizzi Erskine’s Big Mac sauce (see here on Insta) and it was excellent. Faithful to the original and easy to do. If you want the recreate the Golden Arches at home then follow her recipe to the letter. For my second attempt I wanted something similar but with a little more kick. Sure, it’s not quite the same as a Big Mac but why not experiment a bit. It’s very similar to Gizzi’s sauce and so proper credit goes to her for showing how to do it. Mine is merely a personal variation.

200g mayonnaise
100g ketchup
30g Dijon mustard
0.5tsp hot paprika
0.5tsp garlic salt
0.5tsp onion salt
0.5tsp white wine vinegar
Half a banana shallot diced as finely as you can
Half a gherkin diced as finely as you can

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix until incorporated. Leave to sit for half an hour and then try not to eat it while you make the rest of the burger.

Make the patties

The flavour from a good burger comes from the fat. Use 5% or 10% fat ground beef and you’ll have a dry tasteless disc of protein. You need at least 15% fat and if you can find it, 20%. These patties are thin and will dry out quickly. If the idea of using so much fat is not your thing, make something else. Really. No amount of sauce will save them.

Some use eggs or breadcrumbs to keep the burgers together. I don’t think a good burger needs either. The secret as far as I’m concerned is seasoning and your fridge. I like to add finely diced shallot and parsley to my burgers. You don’t have to but then you didn’t make your own buns and I’m not really talking to you anymore.

Take the meat out of the fridge and work quickly. Season with salt, add pepper and then the shallot and parsley which you should chop before you take the meat out of the fridge. Weigh (yes, really) out 100g of beef per burger and flatten on until they are as thin as they can be. Shape vaguely so they are round. The meat will shrink in the pan so you want them to start off bigger than the diameter of your buns. You can do it carefully and gently, or you can copy Actually3:

https://twitter.com/ishkolhatkar/status/1264592152572702721?s=20

Lift off each patty and place between squares of parchment paper and then put them back in the fridge to firm up again while you prepare the accoutrements.

The Accoutrements

I heard a member of the bar use this word in my first trial in which I was led. Not my leader, but the person leading for defendant 1. The witness had no idea what the word meant. In true General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, VC, KCB, DSO, style I wrote it down and still use it, (unnecessarily) to this day. For each burger you need:

Two slices of processed cheese. I use Emmental because I refuse to buy those orange squares of plastic no matter how faithful they are to the recipe
A small handful of finely sliced iceberg lettuce
A few slices of gherkin
A teaspoon of finely diced onion or shallot. If you want a milder flavour, then follow Gizzi’s advice and steep them in boiling water for 5 minutes and strain.

Cooking the burgers and final assembly

Take a heavy frying pan, ideally cast iron and heat it until smoking hot. Add a lick of oil and slap two burgers in. Cook for two minutes undisturbed. While that’s happening, slice a bun so that you have three layers of bread. I find it easiest to cut the bottom layer off first aiming a bit smaller than you think and then splitting what is left.

When the burger is cooked on one side, flip it over and add the cheese while it cooks for about a minute on the second side.

To assemble, its a spoon or two of sauce on the bottom bun, lettuce, onions, a burger and then the middle layer of bread. Repeat the same ingredients and then a schmear of sauce on the top bun before placing it on top.

Eat it quick or a little boy might be looking for seconds…

BigIsh Mac