People all over the world are actively cutting meat out from their diets, to both be less ecologically impactful, and more healthy. Gousto is definitely helping…..
‘I have an announcement to make…’ is never a good way to start a conversation with your better half. I took and deep breath, and braced myself for a bombshell – but I couldn’t have been prepared for what came next.
‘I’ve decided to become a vegetarian’ are words that a burger lover never wants to hear. These days however, it no longer means cardboard patties with melted rubber cheese. Now it means flavourful burgers with tasty sauces and great buns. The cheese, however, is getting there slowly.
Being as busy as we all are, recently we have been looking at the box meal solution to help ease that eternal ‘what shall we have for dinner’ conversation, which nearly always ends up standing in line for a takeaway.
Gousto, a UK based box company offered a great solution at a price point that works for us. This week we had the pleasure of sampling their limited edition ‘Ultimate Vegan burger, with seasonal fries’ and it’s utterly delicious.
The soy protein and beetroot burger patties sounds are purple straight out of the box, which took us slightly be surprise and honestly have a texture that I can only describe as ‘pastey’. No way these are going to be good, right?
Wrong! What a revelation! Cooked in the oven at 220° for 25 minutes these odd little purple patties browned off a treat, firmed up and expressed a juice that I’m genuinely struggling to describe as anything other than meaty and delicious.
The rest of the burger was familiar but different. The plant based brioche buns look, taste and feel as good as their buttery counterparts. Side by side you’ll struggle to tell them apart. The middle slice is a gravy soaked ciabatta to add an extra layer of moist goodness. Both bread components toasted and ready to rock were slathered in a mayonnaise and cranberry sauce to add to the seasonal flair. The sweet and savoury mixing to bring out the best in the burger.
To bandy the word ‘ultimate’ around, you’d better bring your A game, and Gousto have smashed this out of the park. Definitely worth a try whilst they’re still available.
As a self professed meat lover, even I have to concede that a healthy diet should be balanced, and that means that less meat and more plant based is the order of the day. Also with increasing evidence that farming animals for meat is a contributor to changing climates it makes sense to make different choices when selecting what to have for dinner.
That is where vegetarian meat substitutes are really come into their own, and with the leaps being made in the flavour and texture of what is on offer it makes the choice to eat less meat much more palatable.
It wasn’t so long ago that your choices for a meat free burger was either a grilled field mushroom, or a Quorn burger. The latter being the first pioneering step towards where we are today, which is a high tech multi billion dollar industry that is growing year on year. These days your vegan plant based burger is juicy, has a similar texture to beef and is just as tasty.
More and more we see these incredible creations popping up alongside our beefy favourites, and they are increasingly tempting. Gone is the cardboard, and here is the juicy, tasty goodness.
So, next time you’re looking for a new experience, why not take a walk on the wild side, and try something with less beef……
The Burger Blog 