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Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with a bigger, better, big arch burger. That's right. Not only will I show you a larger and I think far superior version of McDonald's offering, I'm also going to show you an easier and better way to do Smashburgers. And as if that wasn't enough, I'm also going to remind everybody about the world's most underrated crunchy snack food. And to get started, we'll begin by building our bigger better big art sauce, which starts with some mayonnaise, to which we will add some ketchup, some yellow mustard, some sweet pickle relish, and of course, go ahead and use dill pickle relish if you want, but we're actually putting sliced dill pickles on the burger. So, I think sweet's the way to
go. And then we'll also want some garlic powder, some smoked paprika, a little splash of cider vinegar, followed by exactly three shakes of cayenne to make it bigger and better. And that's it. We'll take a spoon and give it a mix. And then keep it in the fridge until we need it. And yes, this is even better if you make it ahead. And once that's set, we will move on to one of the world's most underrated crunchy snacks, funions, which are like onions but more fun. And we'll be using these instead of what McDonald's uses, which are those little crumbly fried onions that your aunt puts on the green bean casserole every year. And those are fine, but this is going to
taste better and be crunchier. And then besides the funions, the other stuff going on this burger is going to be some sliced dill pickles, as I mentioned, some thinly sliced fresh red onion. And of course, some iceberg lettuce, which I think should be thinly sliced. And once that stuff's set, we can move on to the meat. And what we'll do is make two patties, which I'm going to smash flat between plastic. And with a classic smash burger, we place the ball of beef in the pan and then we smash it flat. Before the home cook, instead of trying to do that in a hot pan, I think smashing ahead of time like this is much easier. And we can get a nice uniform shape and thickness. And as you'll see,
we're going to get the same beautiful crusty crispy surface. And once pressed, if we want something neater, we can go around and fine-tune the edges with our fingers. And by the way, we're using 5 oz instead of 4 oz patties, but I'm sure this would be fine with the more standard size. So, you decide. I mean, you are after all the Samuel L. Jackson of your protein maxin. But either way, this is going to be a tasty burger. Speaking of which, before we start frying our burgers, let's take our burger bun and open it up and spread over a little bit of our sauce. Since what we'll do before our pan gets too hot is toast our bun to warm it up and give that inside surface a little
bit of crispy texture. Plus, by cooking it a little bit, this portion of sauce is going to have a little bit of a different flavor profile to the copious amounts we're going to spoon over the bun later. So, I think this is a nice little trick that makes any burger better. And I don't think there's anything more beta than serving a nice burger on an untoasted bun. And once that's been accomplished, we'll set that aside. and we'll crank up our heat to high and wait for the pan to get nice and hot. At which point we'll transfer in our pre- smashed mash burgers. And then we'll take our spatula and we'll give those a nice pressing down to make sure that meat stuck to the bottom of
the pan, which is kind of the key to create that nice crispy crust. And once those are nicely adhered, we will generously season the top with some salt and freshly ground black pepper. And because these patties are nice and thin, we only have to season one side. And then what we'll do is let these cook for just a couple minutes or until we see that meat around the bottom edge lose that raw red color. And once the bottom of the burger looks like that, we'll take our spatula and we will loosen those front edges because before we go in from the back, we always want to loosen the front. And that's it. We'll take our spatula and loosen the other sides before we forcibly but very carefully scrape all the way through.
And I'm going to flip that first one over, breaking off a small piece so that when I flip the next one over, it will fly across the pan. And the reason I did that totally intentionally was to show you that if that happens and a piece of meat breaks off, push it and poke it underneath a burger's edge anywhere and it will magically reattach. And we can all pretend that never happened. And then as soon as you do flip a smash burger, you want to immediately place over your cheese, which for a bigger better big arch burger is going to be some white cheddar. And once that's on, as soon as it's melted, which is only going to take a minute or so, our burger is going to be cooked through and ready
to serve up. And what we'll do is transfer that onto a plate and let it rest for just one minute while we dress our toasted bun, which for me starts with quite a bit of our sauce. Right. The trade-off with a smash burger is that we're sacrificing a little bit of moisture in the burger and a little bit of juiciness for that incredibly flavorful, super beefy, crispy, caramelized crust. So, do not be shy when you're spreading that on. And once that's been applied, we will lay down some freshly sliced red onions, which I think are so much nicer than what you get at McDonald's, which I believe are those little slivered white onions that someone cut about seven hours ago, and
they're like way too strong. And that's it, we'll top those with our funions. And I'm going to go with three small to medium ones, but you put on as many as you can fit. And then over that, we'll go with our third piece of cheese, which I know is not melted yet, but it's pretty much going to be when we place over those hot smash burgers. And once those have been placed over, we will lay down our three dill pickle slices, followed by some more freshly sliced onion, and then our last set of onions. And then our last step is to top this with iceberg lettuce, which I'm going to pile on the bun and then attempt to flip over on top without everything exploding. Or maybe it's easier to pile
it on the funions and then top it with the bun. But either way, we will place that over and press it down, at which point you'll just start eating. Okay. I wasn't able to immediately since I had to fuss around a little bit and do some food styling since I had to place it in front of a side of funions and then take my contractually obligated pictures. But eventually I was able to pick that up and bite in. And that, my friends, truly was a bigger and I think much better big arch burger. Or so I assume since I've never had one. Okay. Hey, I did watch a video of one being made in a McDonald's as well as more than a few reaction videos and of course the famous clip of the CEO trying it. And based on
all those observations, I've concluded this is way, way better, right? Those funions really are incredible and they retain their crunchy texture and have a beautiful savory onion flavor. And if you do have a nice big cast iron pan and you can do the smashburger method I showed you, it really is shocking how much better your burger will taste. And besides being more intensely beefy and super savory, that texture from the crispy crust really does take the cheeseburger experience up to another level. So if you're looking to bite into a big burger, I could not recommend this anymore. And by the way, I wanted to call this the Alpha Arch Burger, but apparently that's the name of a dental implant. And you know, some people might
have got confused. So, my corporate overlords suggested we come up with another name, but no matter what you call this burger or whether you've had the original Big Arch burger or not, this was incredible and I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always in joy.
