the vegetarian butcher

...THE LOVELIEST OF 'EM ALL WAS THE UNIQUORN!

This legendary animal of yore
Inspired tapestries, stories and more
Like this unicorn meal
That has visual appeal, 
A fun dish we could serve in our store!

I don't want to mislead you here, our burgers are 100% vegetarian, and I assure you will not show up on the 11 o'clock news in any stories investigating traces of unicorn.  They do however contain the vaguely mysterious, somewhat controversial, and frankly pretty darn convincing substance called Mycoprotein.  This is the main ingredient in all Quorn products, a meat-free protein, low in fat and cholestorol. (more at http://www.quorn.co.uk)

So what is the mystery? Why the controversy? There is ongoing debate about Quorn and upon further investigation it seems to come down to 2 things.  

First, what is this Mycoprotein?  After reading several different sites describing it, I still feel in the dark.  Basically, what I can understand is that it begins as a type of naturally occurring fungus (not a mushroom) from which cultures are fermented in large vats. The result is this protein-rich solid which is then 'harvested' and is used in a broad range of products, meat-like in taste and texture.  Clear? It actually starts to sound grossly unappealing and if I wasn't already a fan of the few Quorn products I have tried, I would probably be a bit hesitant to give it a go. Fortunately for me, I have already passed that hurdle!       

Secondly there have been reports of people being very ill after eating Quorn, with an upset stomach and some kind of allergic reaction but from what I understand the cause of this response is not conclusive.  From the amount of Quorn I alone have consumed without feeling ill (past the odd moment of gluttony), I am pretty confident it is not likely a general reaction so perhaps it is based on an individual's intolerance, like some other allergies.  So for me, neither issue is a problem.  To read more about it, check out this interesting article from Wired magazine:  http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2002/04/51842

Now, back to the uniQuorn burgers...  The obvious and very easy route would have been to use a single pre-made Quorn burger patty, slap it on a bun, and le voilà, one uniQuorn burger ready to go!  (And for the record, those Quorn burgers are actually quite delish).  But this plan lacked finesse, so to put a homemade stamp on it, I found this recipe online that uses Quorn mince:  http://chiakaivalya.wordpress.com/category/vegetarian-kitchen/ (though I substituted finely crushed cream crackers for the breadcrumbs).  They turned out really well, a nice bit of spice from the chillies, and fresh flavour with the chopped coriander.  It is certainly a dish I would like to come back to as it was originally intended for meatballs on kuali.com, a recipe site hosted by Malaysian newspaper The Star, and meatballs are definitely going to be on the cards.

Homemade burger patty using Quorn mince

But there was just one thing missing to give these burgers a little something special. Something that would enable even those without access to Quorn products to adapt any burger patties to make their very own uniCorn burger...

a golden uni corn!!!

 UniQuorn Burger