Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 502 - 414: Juicy Burgers to Envy

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

Just as she was about to take a bite, Daniel suddenly turned around.

"You’re really going to eat it cold? Isn’t there a microwave over there? Go heat it up, let me show you what delicious really means!"

Microwave?

Heat a hamburger??

Lin tilted her head in confusion, clearly a bit lost in her brother’s thought process.

But she didn’t say much more, and immediately got up and walked over there.

Hamburgers are indeed better hot; when cold, both the filling and the bread are hard to swallow.

Having been here for a few years, it’s the first time she’s heard that hamburgers can be heated in the microwave.

While the yellow light inside the microwave was on and the hamburger was rotating, her eyes were fixed on it, as if worried that something unexpected might happen the next second.

"Buzz——"

"Ding!"

The light went out, accompanied by the familiar beep.

Lin breathed a sigh of relief, quickly opened the microwave, and was about to reach in to grab it when she was hit by an incredibly rich beef aroma.

The moment she smelled the fragrance, she instinctively took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma completely into her nasal cavity.

The familiar scent of wheat, the familiar aroma of the beef patty, faintly mixed with a hint of chargrilled flavor.

Doesn’t smell any different from the beef hamburgers she had before!

She placed the other fried chicken one in to heat as well, not thinking much, and picked up the hamburger, ready to take a bite again.

Hot beef hamburgers don’t have that greasy feeling; she could eat freely and confidently, at most, the reheated ones wouldn’t taste as good as freshly made ones.

The moment her teeth sank into the bun, Lin froze, a hint of surprise flashing in her eyes.

This isn’t the texture of a hamburger bun at all, is it?

It looked like a bun that had been squashed flat, and she thought it might have been accidentally sat on by her brother, but once it was in her mouth, she realized how wrong she was.

The texture of this bread wasn’t the traditional hamburger bun’s soft interior structure, but rather soft with a distinct chewiness, reminiscent of a flatbread or naan, definitely not like bread at all.

No wonder her brother said it was a taste she’d never experienced before; indeed, that’s true.

"Whoosh"

In the next second, a warm stream shot out from her mouth.

"?????"

It wasn’t too hot, because she didn’t heat it for long and didn’t know how many minutes it needed to be heated, as long as it felt warm.

But where did this meat juice come from??

The handmade beef patty in the middle of a beef hamburger is essentially meat shaped into a ball and then flattened, grilled after being pan-fried.

Besides possible slight differences in seasoning, the common flavor profiles are mainly crushed black pepper and sea salt, with a bit of oregano or sage used as garnish.

The specialty of this hamburger is the solid meat texture and the thickness you can taste from the beef patty.

She disliked eating beef hamburgers the most.

Aside from the fact that they’re too big for her, impossible to bite into in one go, the main issue was the difficulty in achieving balance in the flavors of the beef patty.

If there’s more lean meat, it feels hard and lacks juice.

If there’s more fat, eating several bites can be very greasy, making it impossible to finish a whole one.

But this beef hamburger in front of her perfectly avoided all of her pet peeves, even her small mouth could easily bite into the whole hamburger.

Taking a closer look, she discovered the mystery hidden within the beef patty in the middle.

From the outside, this beef patty looked no different from those she’d had before, all with a charred brown exterior and visible minced meat granules.

But once bitten into, the components of this meat patty were completely different!

Normal meat patties have a more pronounced graininess; after being grilled for a long time, the fatty portions in the mince are already melted, leaving only the taste of pure lean meat.

Whereas the meat patty in the peculiar hamburger possessed a finer granularity, with visible white fat granules mixed within, and even the naked eye could see the rich juice gradually spreading from the bitten section.

Fat?

Lin tilted her head, her eyes clearly showing a deep sense of perplexity.

Continuing to chew a few times, apart from feeling the meat patty’s tenderness and juiciness, she couldn’t discern the existence of fat.

"How strange, why is it like this?"

Determined to figure it out, she swallowed the food in her mouth, aimed at a spot where the fatty granules were more prominent, and took a small bite.

"Whoosh"

Once again, a small stream shot out, and the entire fatty piece was pulled out, leaving a dark hole in the meat patty.

After chewing the fat particle alone for a few times, she felt a slight greasiness, but it was completely different from the familiar greasy feeling of fat, even only one-third of the usual level.

It was more like eating a piece of juicy beef-flavored morsel than fat.

"How could this happen??"

Lin’s little head was filled with big question marks.

When she was young, her family’s circumstances were difficult. Let alone meat, even something like potatoes was hard to come by.

Later, after managing to flee to safety and live a comfortable life, long-term malnutrition left her body unable to handle overly greasy foods.

Eating too much would even give her diarrhea.

So, she usually tried to avoid greasy foods, especially those with visible fatty meat.

A whole beef burger wasn’t an issue, but she definitely couldn’t eat any other high-fat foods that day.

But the burger in her hand exceeded her understanding.

It clearly contained a lot of fat, yet she didn’t detect any greasy feeling from the fat, and the patty wasn’t large. It was only about two-thirds the size of a normal beef burger.

At this amount, unless she ate two on her own, she didn’t have to worry about her stomach and intestines feeling uncomfortable.

"Huh? What’s this..."

While staring at the burger in a daze, she suddenly noticed something between the patty and buns. Because she was holding it a bit too tightly, a thick sauce with bits of Crushed Black Pepper was slowly dripping down.

Lifting up the bun, she was startled to find that the layers were packed full of sliced mushrooms!

White mushrooms, brown mushrooms, and king oyster mushrooms were sliced thinly, their surfaces coated in a rich black pepper sauce, stacked layer upon layer on the beef patty.

Lin licked a bit, and suddenly understood.

The juice that sprayed out when she took the first bite wasn’t the meat juice from the beef patty but the mushroom sauce that was squeezed out!

This juice clearly wasn’t just from the mushrooms but was a mix of sauce used to fry the mushroom slices combined with their juice.

It was a bit thinner than honey, slightly runny, and had a transparent amber glow.

Noticeable bits of Crushed Black Pepper were scattered throughout, adding a tangy aroma to the bland mushrooms, and also enhancing the flavor of the beef patty.

The sauce was a light brown, probably due to the addition of soy sauce or something similar.

Having eaten a lot of Asian cuisine, she was already familiar with some basic seasonings. On her days off, she would even try making a few home-cooked dishes by following videos.

The beef patty itself didn’t seem to have any strong seasoning, carrying only the natural fragrance of beef with no detectable spices.

But that made her even more curious.

If nothing was added, why was this beef patty so tender and juicy?

With her limited cooking skills, she couldn’t comprehend the secret, so she just kept eating one bite after another.

She had to admit, this unique bun texture combined with the juicy mushroom filling and the crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside beef patty, all topped with a thick layer of lettuce to cut the greasiness, was truly delightful.

It didn’t look anything special, even seemed a bit ugly in appearance, but it tasted much better than the typical beef burgers sold outside.

Maybe she was just tired of her usual food, but today this burger tasted especially good.

After finishing it, she licked the black sesame seeds from the corner of her lips and, craving more, glanced at the microwave timer.

"If it’s so delicious when reheated, how good must it have been when freshly made?"

Almost instantly she realized this burger was probably bought by Daniel from a high-end hotel restaurant.

Western burgers almost all follow the same template, the only differences being the vegetables and seasoning of the patty inside. Everything else is pretty much the same.

A burger like this with obvious innovative elements and traces of Asian seasonings must have come from that hotel restaurant!

"Ding!"

After waiting another thirty seconds, the microwave stopped, and she eagerly took out the burger, turning around to run to Daniel.

"Daniel! Is this from the hotel restaurant you mentioned?"

"No, no, no," Daniel quickly shook his head, "I bought it myself!"

"What about the portion you ate?"

"Hehe, that one was free~"

"I knew it!"

Saying that, Lin bit fiercely into the chicken burger.

After being stored for several hours, the crispy outer layer of the fried chicken had long become soggy and soft, and not even heating it in the microwave could save its exterior.

Unless it was reheated in the oven or thrown back into the oil.

Lin, who was already mentally prepared, wasn’t surprised at all and focused her attention on the chicken inside.

The texture of the chicken thigh patty was completely different from the beef patty earlier. The overall texture was quite bouncy and had a clear hint of the meat’s freshness.

The chicken thigh patty seemed to have been marinated beforehand, containing a subtle hint of chili powder, with each strand of meat carrying just the right amount of saltiness.

Most importantly, the chicken patty’s juiciness was as abundant as the beef patty, tender as if it had just finished cooking. However, due to reheating, it was cooked slightly more than before.

But even so, one could taste the inherent tenderness and juiciness of the chicken, a testament to how perfectly the patty had been prepared.

This was the breakfast meal her brother enjoyed for free every day?

All of this caliber of dishes?