DIY Takeaway
Georgia Mueck tries out making fast food favourites at home for those days when you just can’t be bothered leaving the house.
There are some days when all you want is a big, juicy cheese burger, or perhaps some spicy fried chicken, and a mountain of golden chips. You might be recovering from a hangover, maybe had a stressful day at uni, perhaps both, but when you’re having one of those days a big feed can be exactly what you need.
There are those days, and then there are the days when you want that feed but you cannot bring yourself to leave the house.
Well, fear not, for there is a way to have your cake and eat it too. Yak brings you the DIY guide to recreating your favourite fast foods at home!
The Big Yak (a.k.a the burger formerly known as the Big Mac)
Ingredients (burger):
1 sesame seed burger bun
1/2 extra bun
500g mince meat (eggplant is a delicious vegetarian alternative)
handful of iceberg lettuce, chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped onion
2 slices of cheese
2-3 pickle slices
Big Yak sauce to taste
Ingredients (Big Yak sauce):
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup mustard (American mustard is best but I only had Dijon which is still nice)
1 tbsp sweet mustard pickles
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
pinch of curry powder
pinch of salt
Haven’t quite got all the ingredients there but hey, close enough.
Method:
To make the Big Yak sauce, simply mix all the ingredients together.
For the burger, roll the mince into balls and flatten them into rounds. Season with salt and pepper and set aside (it is really important to season AND let it sit because that lets the flavour set in). Heat oil in a non-stick pan over a medium heat, then chuck in your burger patty and let it rip (and by that I mean let it continue to sizzle nicely at a medium temp).
Meanwhile, cut your burger bun in two and place it along with your additional half bun under the grill to toast. I would recommend keeping an eye on your buns, lest they turn out like mine:
… whoops.
Note also the melted cheese. That would be because I completely forgot to buy sliced cheese at the shops. If you find yourself in the same boat, you can just used grated cheese and melt it on top of your burgers while you cook them.
The cheese did melt eventually, I was just impatient.
Once everything is cooked, or over-cooked in my burger buns case, all that’s left to do is assemble it. Spread the Big Yak sauce on each bun, and then it goes lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, beef and repeat. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter what order you use, it all tastes delicious in the end. After that all that is left to do is EAT!
Not-So-Wicked Wings
These didn’t turn out as spicy as I had hoped. I should have used chilli powder but I didn’t have any at home and completely forgot to buy it. For those who do love a spicy wing, definitely opt for chilli powder AND paprika to get the hotness and the flavour!
Ingredients:
500g chicken wings
1/2 – 1 cup plain flour
1 – 2 tsp paprika
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
Salt
Oil for frying
Method:
Mix the egg and milk together, and then the flour, paprika and salt together. Coat the wings in the flour, then in the egg and milk mixture, and then again in the flour. You can then deep fry the wings, or heat 1 cup of oil in a pan and do a shallow fry. If you do a “shallow fry” then you will have to bake the wings in the oven for a while after as they may not cook all the way through properly.
Chips (I have no clever name for these, they’re just chips after all)
Ingredients:
Potatoes
A lil drizzle of oil
Maybe a lil salt
That’s it, that’s all you need
Method:
Heat your oven to 180 degrees fan-forced, or 200 degrees for a conventional oven.
If you’re using brushed potatoes, clean the dirt off them or peel them if you don’t like skin. Actually you can do that for any sort of potato, I guess. Anyway, after that it’s a simple matter of cutting them length ways into rectangular prisms (yes, I know maths things thank you very much) and laying them out flat on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with salt and drizzle the oil over them. Then you just bung them in the oven! It can take anywhere from 20-35 minutes for them to cook, so it’s best to check them every 10 mins and to give them a flip.
Once it was all done my DIY takeaway food ended up looking like this:
All in all I am very pleased with the results. While it obviously does cost more than just going to Maccas or wherever, it’s a lot cheaper if you’re cooking for multiple people. To buy the ingredients for all of this I only spent just over $20, and if I’m honest I have probably spent close to that at fast food places before! Plus, you know exactly (or at least mostly) what is in your food and of course, you can always play around with it and experiment!
Happy cooking and I hope you enjoy making DIY takeaway as much as I did.
Images: by Georgia Mueck.
YES! My partner and I have become obsessed with this, attempting to re-create our favourite take-out meals at home. Burgers, butter chicken and pizza (including dough from scratch!) are the favourites, and it’s way more fun than going out! We haven’t tried chicken wings yet, so I’ll have to give these a go 🙂