Building an Even Better Big Mac

This recipe is sponsored by BALMUDA, makers of the the teppanyaki, which is an electric flattop griddle that has been recently introduced to the US. You can order them from BALMUDA using the code “KENJI_15” to get 15% off your entire BALMUDA order. I’m partnering with them because it stands head and shoulders above any other flattop I’ve used at home due to its heavy, tri-ply cooking surface and its gorgeous aesthetics. The griddle plate is made from a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of steel, just like a high quality tri-ply skillet.

All electric plug-in appliances are limited to the 1800 watts of power that a household outlet can provide, but the Teppanyaki’s heavy griddle allows it to retain a ton of heat energy and to distribute that energy very evenly across its surface. This means not only can you gently cook pancakes and fish, you can also sear steaks, crisp up fried rice, host your own Korean BBQ or yakiniku parties at home, or even make crisp-edged smashburgers.

That takes me to today’s recipe.

There’s an old Japanese-American saying that I’m making up today. It goes like this: “All Big Macs are the same, just as all Big Macs are different.” No matter how uniform a Big Mac is from one McDonalds location to the next, the experience of eating a Big Mac changes is never quite the same. 

Take, for instance, the Great Late Night Big Mac of 2011. It was bought from the street-side window of the McDonald’s on 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in New York around 3AM after I returned home from a night of debauchery in the East Village. I ate it standing on the street corner as I shared some fries with Julissa, the wheelchair-bound woman who was always asking for burgers and fries outside of that particular McDonalds. It was exactly the nourishing restorative I needed at that moment, and I relished it as much as I relished the conversation.

Or consider the Perfect Big Mac of 2009, which I got from a McDonald’s in Tokyo where, it seems, workers took true pride in providing customers with a sandwich that looked nearly identical to the sandwich shown in the advertisement. It was a picture-perfect Big Mac handed to me in its tidy little box with two hands and a bow. How could you help but not enjoy it after that?

All that said, the best Big Macs I’ve eaten have all come from home.

I set out to deconstruct and reconstruct the Big Mac a few years ago and came up with a recipe that is a near-tastealike.

First I broke down the sauce. Contrary to some Big Mac clone recipes, Big Mac sauce is not, in fact, a variant of Thousand Island dressing because it contains no ketchup or tomato product of any kind. Looking at its ingredients list, it’s actually a combination of mayonnaise and mustard, seasoned with pickle relish, sugar, vinegar, and onion. The red color of the sauce comes from a combination of turmeric, paprika extract, and caramel coloring. In my original recipe, I included some grated onion. Since then, I’ve mostly been skipping that ingredient as there’s still plenty of onion flavor from the onions on the burger itself without the need to dirty up a microplane or add an extra step to the process. (It is, after all, meant to be fast food.)

Speaking of onions, the Big Mac uses the same dehydrated-then-rehydrated onions that the regular burgers at McDonald’s use. They have a distinctly different flavor and texture from freshly cut onions. Softer, milder, and essential to that whole McDonald’s mood. To mimic them at home, I found that microwaving finely chopped onions on a paper towel-lined plate at low heat for 10 minutes does a great job, simultaneously concentrating the onions’ flavor but also filing down its sharp edges.

Perhaps the defining characteristic of a Big Mac is its club-style bun. To make it at home, I start with a regular supermarket hamburger bun (nothing fancy–cheap, soft, and squishy is the name of the game here). To get that middle layer, I hold a  sharp knife parallel to my cutting board and carefully shave off the bottom of the bottom half of a second bun.

A Big Mac bun has around 600 sesame seeds on it (yes, I counted), which is more than most store-bought buns. To apply the seeds, I rub the bun with a very thin layer of egg whites before sprinkling it heavily with sesame seeds and toasting it for just a moment in the toaster oven to get the egg white to set. Finally, I toast all three of these bun pieces dry (that is, with no added fat) on the Teppanyaki to a nice golden brown.

The rest of the toppings are easy: shredded iceberg, dill pickle chips, and a single slice of American cheese. That cheese slice is, bafflingly, applied underneath the bottom patty of the sandwich which has never made sense to me. I don’t do it that way at home. Instead, I drape it over the lower patty to give it a chance to melt a bit during sandwich assembly.

The patties themselves are where we can get into the biggest improvements. In my original recipe, I suggested grinding your own meat from a mixture of brisket and short rib. The me who existed at that time had no kids, more energy, and a meat grinder that desperately wanted using. These days I don’t bother grinding my own meat unless I’m really making a weekend project of it. Instead, I prefer to maximize beefy flavor by cooking may patties smash burgers-style. The trick is to let them cook 90% of the way through on the first side to allow for maximal browning, then scraping them up and flipping them just for a kiss of heat on the second side to maintain juiciness.

With a good griddle like the BALMUDA Teppanyaki, a mortaring trowel, and a razor scraper,  this is a piece of cake. (A stovetop griddle or a skillet large enough that you can fit a burger-smashing implement into it will also work). 

I get that a trip to McDonalds isn’t for everyone. Luckily, that doesn’t mean we can’t all enjoy a Big Mac now and then.

An Even Better Big Mac

Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I like about this recipe:

• Smashing the patties creates big beef flavor, even with store-ground beef.

• A combination of mayo, mustard, relish, and a few basic seasonings makes a perfect taste-alike for Big Mac sauce.

• I use the bottom bun of a regular squishy bun as the middle bun of a homemade Big Mac.

Yield: 1 sandwich

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 ounces (60g) finely minced yellow onion

3 1/5 ounces (100g) ground beef chuck (at least 20% content)

1 1/2 tablespoons (20g) mayonnaise

1 1/2 teaspoons (8g) sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon (5g) yellow mustard

1 teaspoon (4g) sugar

1/4 teaspoon (1g) Marmite, Vegemite, or Maggi seasoning

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 egg white

1 whole soft, squishy, generic hamburger bun, plus one bottom bun

Precisely 600 sesame seeds (or as many or as few as you’d like)

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Dill pickle slices

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 slice American cheese

Steps:
1. Line a microwave-safe plate with a double layer of paper towels and spread the minced onion evenly over it. Microwave on low power until the onion is just starting to brown in a couple spots around the edges, about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, combine the mayonnaise, relish, mustard, sugar, Marmite, and turmeric. Stir to combine and refrigerate until ready to use. The sauce can be made up to a week in advance and will mellow in flavor over time.

3. Use one finger to spread a very thin layer of egg white over the top of the top bun. Sprinkle generously with the sesame seeds and toast in a toaster oven until the egg white is set, about 1 minute. Set aside. Use a sharp, thin knife to cut off the very bottom of the bottom bun half, creating a single circular piece of bread with cut surfaces on both sides.

4. Preheat a stovetop griddle or an electric griddle like the BALMUDA Teppanyaki over high heat until hot. Toast the cut sides of every bun until golden brown, moving them around the griddle to brown evenly.

5. Place the bottom bun and center bun on your cutting board toasted-side up. Spread half of sauce on each. Divide the dehydrated onions evenly between bottom and center buns and top with lettuce. Place a few pickle slices on each.

6. Form the beef into two balls and season generously on all sides with salt and pepper. Place the balls on the griddle and top each with a small square of parchment paper. Smash the patties using a stiff spatula or trowel, focusing on the edges to thin them out to make a circle slightly larger than the buns.

7. Cook without moving until the first side is crusty and browned, about 2 minutes. Scrape up the patties with a razor scraper or an overturned stiff spatula and flip them. Top one patty with the cheese slice. Cook until the second side is no longer pink, about 20 seconds. Transfer the cheese-topped patty to the bottom bun and the cheeseless patty to the middle bun. Stack the middle bun stack on top of the bottom bun stack and close the sandwich with the top bun. Serve immediately.