Burger buns don’t need to get in the way of a delicious hamburger, discovers Charity Keita, as she explores the world of low-carb bread options.
As I open the oven door I’m hit by the rich wholesome smell of baking goods. Could it be, I ask myself, that my low-carb burger buns have actually turned out to be a success?
My dear readers will have noticed I have been on a bit of a health tip of late. I’ve been watching my carbs and upped my vegetable intake, I’m not counting calories because I find it depressing, I’ve managed to cut about 70% of wheat from my diet and I’ve managed to give sweet potatoes an important role in my life (apparently they are really good for you). I try to read up as much as I can on all this stuff and sometimes I get incredibly lost with all the conflicting information out there. One thing for sure is that I’m nowhere close to embarking on a gluten-free diet. Nothing that anyone has written so far, has convinced me this is something I should worry about. When it comes to meat, I’ve been in two minds: ever since the Atkins diet exploded into our communal consciousness at the beginning of the century, there have been so many different diet variations that insist we should basically only eat meat. Now I find this a bit of a hard sell: so the world gave us an unlimited bounty of delicious fruits and vegetables and somehow they’re supposed to be evil? I just don’t buy it, sorry. That said, since I’ve been reading up on the evidence that fat has been unnecessarily maligned over the past 75 years or so, I’ve begun to be swayed by the argument that it is sugar that is the real evil and not meat and fat and as such, eating them is not such a bad thing after all. This argument does fail to take into account the unarguable impact intensive meat rearing has on our environment and how difficult it is in Kenya to get really nice free range organic meat. As a result, I still have at least one or two meat free days a week and really enjoy the challenge of cooking vegetarian meals. Recently however, much to Joao my fiancé’s pleasure, I have begun to bring meat-centred meals back into the fold.
Which brings us to hamburgers. I really don’t care how many people claim that eating a hamburger without a bun is fine. I hate to break it to you but it isn’t. Hamburgers were invented to be eaten with your hands not with a fork a knife. Recently I’d taken to ripping off most of the bun and just leaving a tiny island onto which I could clasp my thumb and index finger, but I kept on thinking there must some kind of “try this at home” solution.
Turns out there is and I didn’t need to trawl through a million infinitely baffling low-carb burger bun recipes online (they all require me to use xantham gum… does that even exist in Kenya?) the answer to my problems could be found in the aisles of our city’s upmarket supermarkets and health food shops. Bob Redmill’s low carb bread mix. There, the cat’s out of the bag and I was in no way paid to tell you this. Turns out the low carb bread mix is filled with great ingredients (and no mention of xantham gum), is easy to clobber together and the end results are both extremely palatable and incredibly filling! Notch this one down as a Charity Keita culinary success. Don’t believe me? I photographed the results and put them on my IG account so you could check them out for yourself!
@chazdelight
