The thing about pizza is, even bad pizza is pretty good and you'd still happily eat it. Not so with burgers. A bad burger is a crime that can plummet you down the dark hole of despair, as you watch your expectation of the perfect crisp-edged-drippy-cheese-laden-pickely bite float away on a mayonnaise cloud. And so: I try not to waste my time with burgers that could be bad. This category usually consists of cafeteria burgers, ski-hill burgers, burgers with an additional entree set on top on them, burgers that are hats to things like bloody marys, and veggie burgers.
It's true that vegans are bringing the veggie burger to new heights, like the Big Mac riff at J. Selby, but those are mostly aimed at giving vegans a moment of nostalgia, filling that pothole on Memory Lane, so they can keep on keeping on the mission.
But not Impossible Burger, they are coming for the carnivores.
If you haven't heard about it yet, the Impossible Burger is a burger patty made entirely from plant-based ingredients, no meat or animal products, that has captured the fascination of big name chefs like David Chang, Michael Symon, and Traci Des Jardins, because it "bleeds" like beef. The main difference between this burger and the standard black-bean-quinoa mashup veggie burger is: science.
One of the original founders, good ol' Owatonna native and former General Mills guy Nick Halla told me, "The whole point of the company is to reduce the harmful impact of the beef industry on the environment, but the goal is to do that with a delicious burger." Through engineering and science, they've come up with a patty that sears like beef, looks like beef, juices/bleeds like beef, and yes, brings the flavors like beef.
Today I stood on the line at Hell's Kitchen as Nick and HK chef Steve Meyer cooked me some burgers. I asked the big question: So what is this Frankenburger? My fear was that it was really just a wet-bread patty. But in the best nerd-burger way, it's made up of proteins (wheat and potato), binders (xanthan and konjac, a Japanese yam, to help keep shape), fats (coconut and soy beans to give the juiciness), and flavors that include, most importantly, something called heme. It's a molecule which is found in all living things and in abundance in beef (so the thing that makes beef = beefy), but here is derived from fermentation of plants. It's what gives the patty its color and beefish flavor.
NOT MEAT!!!
I watched Steve sear the patties, the bottoms crisping up, the sides turning from pink to grey, "You know I am the biggest carnivore," he told me while building the burgers. "If there's something dead, I'll try to cook it. But these really surprised me, I can't believe how well they work in the kitchen and how they taste! I'm already thinking about how we might use it for MN meatloaf or a meatball sandwich or something in the future."
You guys, Steve really loves meat.
So I found myself biting into four or five different versions of the burger this morning, and the verdict is clear: it's the best meat substitute burger I've ever had, it was flippin' delicious. And even though it wasn't like I couldn't tell it wasn't beef, it had all my beef sensors pinging and it was answering the call ... BUT.
And it's a big but. Much like a regular burger, this stuff has to be cooked the right way to be truly delicious. A few of the trial burgers were overcooked and grey, and the result was a bit mealy in that sawdust way. Steve noted that they cook fast, and you have to get used to that.
But then he brought out his two specialty burgers, a mushroom stuffed burger and a Juicy Lucy version (!!!) (You had me at hello). Both of those burgers were more gently cooked, and there was still a bit of pink around the edges. I have to admit that visual cue does a lot for the mind and the appetite of a carnivore like me. The patties felt like a looser meat grain, yet they had that perfect salty crisp sear on the edges and held together beautifully. The mushroom burger was loving the buttery mushrooms, it was all working in concert in a richly winning way. (Jake the 14yo demolished all my leftovers, so yeah.)
Steve did mention that he'd been playing with patties, and that he'd tried to cook it rare, but that didn't work so well. When he went to medium-rare to lightly medium, he found that perfect beefy bite he was looking for.
So can we change the world with a burger? Halla thinks so, "We use 95% less land and over 70% less water to make this burger. It has similar protein levels to beef, there are no hormones, and you can't get sick from it being undercooked. Texas was our third market and it's doing great down there in beef country, but I have been waiting to get this back here to see how Minnesotans will react."
Will this burger fit into your rotation? Honestly, I won't be giving up my Parlour burger any time soon, but it's not like I eat that every week. This burger could bring the flavor and fit into my rotation pretty easily if it starts to become more readily available. The Impossible Foods company is expanding quickly, into food service and schools even, so that could be a pretty easy reality sooner than you think.
Right now, you'll be able to get the Impossible Burger at Hell's Kitchen exclusively starting on January 2. It will be an off-menu item at first, and will go on the regular menu once they reprint by the end of January. To start, they're going to offer it served on a toasted potato bun, with chipotle mayo and choice of toppings and cheese. It will cost somewhere in the $14 range. As they work with the product, and see what guest demand is like, they'll expand offerings and get creative.
Give it a whirl burger fiends, and let me know what you think!
