The other day DeGroot came home with a package of Beyond Meat hamburger, a product I'd been flirting with for some time but never did get around to trying. We shaped it into patties and griddled it up just like a regular burger. I was expecting it to be one of those "OK for what it is" things, but it wasn't okay.
It was way better.
If I hadn't known, I'd never have suspected it to be anything other than real ground beef. DeGroot agreed.
All excited, I contacted Nancy Leson and insisted she try it. Nance wasn't as thrilled. Though she agreed that the texture is perfectly meat-like and it browns up like beef, she didn't think it had much flavor. I thought it tasted fine. Here's some vid of Nancy frying up her Beyond Burger.
Nance did say that after adding a tomato and some cheese it was much better. That and adding a glug of her new favorite, Mama's Jollof sauce, a Nigerian condiment brewed up at Chef Lilian's Kent-based business, Naija Buka.
Another successful entry to the veg meat arena is the Impossible Burger. Nancy's friend Mike Denton, who hasn't eaten beef in 20 years, was ecstatic about it. It's an encouraging mark of the times that Impossible Burger is available at Burger King, Red Mill and The Ram, though it can be hard to find at supermarkets. Mike says the BK "tasted just like the burgers of my childhood." Impossible now makes sausage, too, which you can find on a Little Caesar's pizza.
This photo has nothing to do with vegetarian burgers.
It's just that I've had my first successful garlic crop in years and wanted to show off.
"It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hmburger bun." – Ray Kroc
