I have just about totally lost all hope and given up.
There is a distinct “beefiness” within each of these chain’s burgers that most homemade regular ground chuck burgers(at least the ones I’ve prepared with just salt and pepper) seem to lack.
Almost every clone recipe out there mentions, just ground beef, salt and black pepper, but you end up with something that does not accurately “clone” the taste of the meat. There has to be something else to this. Has anyone else ever been successful in reproducing the taste in their burger?
The typical response I get is usually, “Oh, they just put boatloads of salt on the patties to trick you into thinking the food is even palatable”. Yet the one’s that I make at home with just a sprinkle of salt come out tasting WAY more saltier than any fast food burger product I’ve ever had.
If you ever sit down and take the beef patty out of the bun and just ate it by itself, (I have), you would find it PRETTY laughable to insinuate that buckets of salt is what’s somehow “tricking people” into eating this product or thinking it tastes good. In fact-- I’ve found the opposite, I can hardly detect ANY salt! and for the life of me I still cannot figure out what it is. MSG got me very close, but that wasn’t all that was to it.
Yes, according to McD’s-- they use forequarter and flank-- which I have tried both separate and still didn’t come close to the taste.
I’m not sure if they are adding special seasonings or what-- all I know is that a dash of MSG certainly went along way into replicating close to fast food burger taste, but still didnt quite get there
Most of the fast-food industry buys hamburger made from beef belly meat, Its like pork belly’s, with a lot of fat and grist. Its the reason you find 3 times as much rubbery things in their burgers than ones you make at home. And that grist, when charred, gives off a most wonderful flavor to the meat.
You can’t buy hamburger with belly meat, coz that industry buys it all up. Then the belly meat is mixed with flank, or whichever cuts of meat the fast-foods places wish to claim.