Food Theory: I Made a $1,000,000 Whopper! (Burger King)

Burger King will give away $1,000,000 to anyone who can prepare their next Whopper. Now, obviously, I've seen people all over YouTube trying to win this by showing their entries, but I realized that everyone is doing it the wrong way. I've seen people use things like truffle, caviar, wagyu beef, all things that would make a Whopper worth a million dollars, but wouldn't make a million dollars. You see, Burger King is actually planning to include this on their menu, and I don't really see Burger King stoc

king

up on

burger

truffles across the country. So today we're going to throw our spatula into the kitchen and show off our three entries to win this competition, but if we want to do it, we're going to have to do it theoretically.

Look, with these three

burger

s we are going to take three things into account. First, we have to keep costs low for Burger King so they can make higher profits. From there, we also have to make it cheap for consumers because, let's face it, no one wants to go to Burger King and spend $15 on a burger. And last but not least, it has to be delicious. So, with those three things in mind, we will have a sure winner that will keep the pockets of the clients and the

king

full. Hello internet! Welcome to Food Theory, the gastronomic show that also builds bridges.

What I'm talking about? Well, we haven't been very kind to dear old Burger King over the last few years. But that's all going to change today, because not only am I going to make amends, but I'm going to create a menu item for them. Then, earlier this year, Burger King announced its Million Dollar Whopper competition, an open call for the burger kingdom to submit any and all wild topper combinations to potentially win a $1 million grand prize and a spot alone for a limited time on BK menus nationwide. At the time of writing and filming this video, it's the last week of entries, so I hate to be the server of bad news, but as you're watching this, entries are closed.

But just because it's too late for your own challenger to participate in this BK fight doesn't mean you'll walk away empty-handed today. Because besides seeing the ups and downs of my journey to becoming the kingmaker, my goal is to bring you an amazing and fresh recipe. A recipe for the burger that I think every fast

food

restaurant, not just BK, should add to their menu. But before we heat up the grill or start shopping for ingredients, we need to follow Tom's trick and do a little game

theory

. So Tom, stay there, you don't have any lines in this one.

This is a competition anyway, so if we're going to win, we need to know what's allowed, how we're rated, and try to read between the lines to figure out what Burger King expects from a winning burger. Only then will we be able to devise our unbeatable strategy. I've thoroughly read all the fine print for the Million Dollar Whopper contest and here's what we need to know. Starting with the behemoth itself, every entry in the competition must include either a BK Flame Grilled Beef Burger or a Vegan Impossible Burger. Also, we can only sandwich this between the standard BK buns, sorry but no pretty burgers here.

Where we can insert our creativity is with the three to eight ingredients that will make our

whopper

s unique. In general, we are free to put any ingredient we want in our burger, as long as the ingredients meet three criteria. Obviously, all the ingredients chosen have to be really edible. For safety reasons, we cannot include common allergens such as peanuts or shellfish. The King also specifies that we cannot add any type of drink to our burger, so preparing a melted burger marinated in Coca-Cola is not possible, although it would be ideal for us. The official rules also tell us exactly what the judging process will be like.

After the contest submission period ends, Burger King will have a panel of judges select three finalists based on three key categories: viability, popularity and innovation. And this is where our strategy will come from. Feasibility is worth 40% of the final decision and is the one with the most weight of the three, making it the most important criterion to consider. This means we need to focus on the availability of ingredients, their cost, and whether it is something that restaurant kitchens can easily store, prepare, and use. So adding expensive white truffle cheese to our charcuterie may taste delicious, but Burger King won't consider it cost-effective or easy to obtain.

Likewise, any items that take too long to prepare, can't be prepared with kitchen appliances, or even take up too much freezer space will be eliminated. Next, BK will evaluate popularity, which is 30% of a burger's total score. And this, theorists, is where you can intervene. Look, if you want to help get our monster elected, there will be a public voting period later where you can vote for our entries. If you want to receive updates on this, be sure to click the subscribe button below so you can help Food Theory Whopper be the winner. Aside from that, this score will also be based on the

whopper

's expected appeal to the widest range of BK diners.

So while there are bound to be some unique and one-of-a-kind combinations, those aren't what they're looking for. The King really wants to sell these burgers and apparently the B in BK stands for BASIC. Burger King, however, will take into account the innovation of our whopper for the remaining 30%. They will evaluate culinary creativity, including how well each dressing captures an authentic flavor or highlights a particular culinary tradition. They're also looking for a new spin on classic combinations that combine ingredients in a whole new way. Finally, this category will consider the overall visual appeal of the final product.

If the giant looks delicious, it will have an advantage over less attractive competitors. Each entree then had to be submitted through Grillium, an AI that not only approves ingredients but also spits out an image of what your burger will look like. After a few practice rounds of the least appetizing burgers I could think of, a few things became clear about Grillium. First, the order of the ingredients doesn't matter, which unfortunately means we'll have to throw out the results of our previous theories about burger

food

. Secondly, although we are allowed 8 ingredients, sometimes the AI ​​image only prints a select few.

I don't want to be that guy, but this breakfast burger is supposed to have waffles and lettuce. Grillium only shows me strawberries, pancakes, whipped cream and chocolate. Literally inedible. Fortunately, after checking it out, AI images are exclusively for marketing. The judges will make their decisions based on the complete recipe submitted, and not on the dream meal that Grillium prepares. Therefore, we can completely ignore these digital hamburgers and focus on the solutions. So, with all that settled, we'll start with our first burger. And to make sure it's popular with consumers, we decided to look for inspiration from none other than the most popular burger on the market, the Big Mac.

Plus, I thought it would give me a couple of troll points, not going to lie. And luckily, with that idea, we'll be using ingredients that Burger King already has available in their kitchens. Therefore, your supply chain should be prepared for this. While I get to cooking, let's explore exactly what is considered doable for burger royalty. Obviously, BK's supply chain is a huge factor in what they consider reasonable to serve. A restaurant supply chain is the network through which a product passes from farm to table. This not only includes the farmers who provide the meat and vegetables, as well as the cooks who cook, but also the truckers who deliver the ingredients and the managers who handle logistics.

Many restaurants may deal with third-party distributors, but BK is established enough to have its own supply chain company, Restaurant Services Inc., dedicated solely to its needs. That actually makes sourcing common ingredients cheaper for them than if they had to negotiate contracts with some unaffiliated supply chain company. Now, if we choose to source something rare, like, say, white tiger meat, that could be an expensive challenge for BK and RSI, but for the most part, standard burger toppings should be easy. As for what fast food outlets can actually keep fresh, we're dealing with an environment that wants to minimize preparation time and maximize efficiency.

Therefore, we want to prioritize ingredients that can be pre-prepared and will keep for weeks in the restaurant's refrigerator and freezer. We also want to minimize the amount of space our ingredients take up in that storage, so the fewer single-item ingredients, the better. Double dipping recipes with other menu items can be a great help in keeping the viability of our burger high. Therefore, sticking with the proven combination of lettuce, onion, tomato and pickles is a safe bet. The tricky part was what the mac sauce would be. See, the AI ​​would only allow a total of 8 ingredients as I set it, and big mac sauce was not a valid option.

So, I had to stick with boring old Thousand Island, but I'll let you in on a big secret, folks. Big Mac Sauce, Thousand Island. Now, this moment here is really important to me. In our Frankenburger episode, I revealed the truth: big mac sauce doesn't contain ketchup. Some of you came up and said: what? It is not like this? Yes, no, it's not like that. Listen to me, it's not like that. The red tone of big mac sauce comes from none other than paprika. That's where that comes from. If I see you putting ketchup in your big mac sauce, I'll throw you in your pantry.

I swear. I must say that this is a big concern for me. And I know what you're thinking, Santi, that's ridiculous. Well, so is ketchup in your big mac sauce. With that taken care of and the burgers cooked well, it was time to prepare the Mac Daddy burger. And, one burger and I was already starting to lose my mind a little. It does not bode well for what is to come. One last cheese. But Santi, the big mac only has a slice of cheese. Yes, we are improving it. We're trying to make this a success, people.

No matter how you feel about that extra slice of cheese or the tomatoes, you have to admit that it looks delicious. Oh my God. Look, look at this. Do you see this right now? This is incredible. But flavor is what we're here for. Alright. Moment of truth. Let's see how it all comes together. Look at this bad boy. I don't even know if I can fit all this in my mouth. I see the problem Matt had with food

theory

not being, you know, out of context. Oh Lord. Wow. I need, I need a napkin. Oh boy.

I should, I should have seen it coming. Let me go eat another bite. Yes, that was amazing. I needed a minute. The combination of all the flavors worked very well. There is nothing innovative about it. As I mentioned, these are all ingredients that any location would already have, which will keep the BK counters happy. Unfortunately, there may be an obvious problem with this entry. It turns out that Burger King has tried to steal Mickey D's crown jewel many times in the past. The High King, the Supreme Double, the Supreme King, all of BK's attempts to hamburger the hamburger.

My mistake here is that this recipe is not currently in rotation. Partly because McDonald's has been suing Australia's Burger King, also known as Hungry Jack, for the past few years. In fact, Hungry Jack recently won that lawsuit, so I wouldn't be surprised if the High King returns soon. But yeah, it could be an uphill battle with this Whopper. So instead of looking to their competitor for inspiration, in the second entry, I decided to look at Burger King a little closer. I wanted to stick with the goal of sticking to ingredients that we know Burger King has no problem sourcing.

But now that I've certainly memorized the menu items, I came up with the idea of ​​combining some of their most popular limited edition Whoppers. The idea here is that we're not only hitting the viability and popularity categories with tried-and-true Burger King ingredients, but we're also scoring innovation points by creating a Whopper that's totally unique. So how did I come up with this monstrosity? Well, the first stage was to examine all the promotional burgers that BK has previously displayed, from the Red Spider-Man burgers to the Black Bund Halloween Whoppers. It's a shame Grilliam doesn't allow colored buns because it's clearly a marketing success.

But beyond that, the first thing that immediately caught my attention was that a substantial amount of these burgers were prepared around heat. This

made

it easy to maintain a viable flavor palette. We'd take the jalapenos from the 2006 Texas Whopper, add the cheesePepper Jack from the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull Whopper and the spicy cheese from the 2022 Ghost Pepper Whopper. To create even more contrast, I took the Crispy Bacon from the California Whopper and took the Smoky A1 sauce from their Halloween version. For my last ingredient, I wanted to honor some of BK's strangest promotions. Apparently, in 2022, a single BK in Berlin was serving pregnancy-craving burgers exclusively to expectant mothers.

These disgusting combinations are bad, but they also offer a lot of variety. I know how many of you are secretly hoping I add ice cream or fish to my recipe, but I'm going to grab those fries and not look back. Not because I'm afraid of those ingredients, but because we have a popularity score to worry about. Which, after trying it, I definitely needed to worry about. Hmm. This was a mistake. Let me go eat another bite. No no. Because? Seriously, nothing about this burger worked. There's a reason these ingredients were used in separate Whoppers, but even then, I feel like it wouldn't have worked in their respective burgers.

Is it logical from a practical point of view?Burger King's point of view? Absolutely. Will it win the popularity category? Definitely not. So for the final entry, I decided to change the focus slightly. Look, the first two burgers were more focused on the two categories I've been referring to: Burger King's viability and popularity. But there is one final category in the competition that I want to highlight with this latest entry: culinary creativity, or how well we highlight a particular cultural tradition. That meant getting a little more personal this time. We're going to have a classic Argentinian sandwich or appetizer or whatever you want to call it, the chorpian, which is essentially crushed chorizo ​​and bread (bread).

You put it together, it's delicious. Some people put tomato on top. And some add chimichurri. He feels bad. It just feels wrong to say that. It's like saying Argentina instead of like Argentina. You know, it's weird for me. Anyway! For those of you who are not familiar with chimichurri, it is a sauce or condiment that we Argentines usually put on our meat. In fact, it's the only thing besides salt that's allowed there. It is composed of a lot of oil, parsley, oregano, garlic and vinegar. There is also some variation from person to person in some other things, like red pepper flakes or chili peppers to add heat.

The exact origins are a bit unclear. Some say it has roots in Basque settlers in Argentina, while others say it comes from an Irishman who enlisted to fight for Argentine independence, and that the name, chimichurri, actually comes from the English name Jimmy McCurry. Yes. However, no matter what the origin, salsa is now forever linked to the country's cultural identity. So we're all set and ready to go, but there's actually one last thing I have to do. A quick wardrobe change. What do you want of me? I have a talent for the dramatic. And before we cook up some burgers, I want to point out just one more thing.

Chorizo ​​​​is an ingredient that is appearing more and more throughout the country. You may see it now in breakfast burritos and Mexican dishes, but this is not that type of chorizo. Mexican chorizo, the most popular type in the United States, is

made

primarily with vinegar and chili peppers, which makes it spicier and gives it a reddish hue. And Argentine chorizo ​​is made primarily with red wine, oregano, and garlic, giving it an earthy, full-bodied flavor that pairs perfectly with chimichurri. Speaking of which, with my chimichurri ready, it was time to finish the burger and assemble this bad boy.

Is that a serious question? No, Jason. The pan sizzled surprisingly lively. Ridiculous questions aside, the choripati actually looked delicious and I couldn't wait to try it. This looks much better than the Burger King Whopper, right from above. The Whopper Whopper had nothing to do with this. Wow. Oh man. Am I a little biased? Sure. But it was good. I even had to ask Jason to come try it. Unfortunately, his palate is clearly not refined enough for this burger. I think it might be a little too earthy for Burger King. You may prefer to mix the chorizo ​​with the meat to make one burger instead of two separate ones.

That's blasphemy. Did you know? Here, I'll have another bite. Ah OK. Look, he can't stop. He can't stop. That's what you want, Burger King. It's good. I also haven't eaten in about three days because I've been working on this set. We didn't need the warning. They don't feed us at all. And I will still not feed you after this. But the bottom line here is that for grumpy Jason, that was a glowing review. But how will it compare to the three competing criteria? Let's start with feasibility. Fortunately, most of the ingredients for this burger are already well known at King's Kitchen, so it won't be difficult to acquire and store the cheese, vegetables, and condiments used for the choripan burger.

Really, it's the chorizo ​​burger and chimichurri that will be new for BK Kitchens. Fortunately, a pre-made chorizo ​​burger is just as easy to find refrigerator space as beef or impossible burgers. And raw chorizo ​​can last unopened in the freezer for up to six months or in the refrigerator for about a week. Technically, raw chorizo ​​lasts longer when stored than beef patties, which should be used within four to six months of freezing or three to four days of refrigeration. Chorizo ​​is also less expensive than beef. A 12-pound bulk supply of raw beef patties costs about $78 total, while the same amount of raw chorizo ​​burgers costs about $64.

Likewise, chimichurri sauce should be fairly easy to make. In a traditional kitchen, prep time usually only takes a few minutes for a fresh batch, but Burger King can also ship the sauce in bulk. Frozen chimichurri can last up to three months and refrigerated can last at least five days. I know for a fact that these ingredients are feasible for any Burger King to incorporate because several BK Latin American menus already include seasonal choripan burgers and the UK also recently introduced smoked chimichurri burgers to their menu, which means we're also marking our next category, popularity. There is already a proven market for these particular combinations internationally, so it stands to reason that BK would inevitably want to test these flavors with American consumers.

My Whopper is that opportunity. Finally, let's talk about the third criterion, innovation. By its very nature, my choripan is already a version of a cultural classic. When I was a kid, I used to eat them all the time, whether it was birthday parties or family gatherings, whatever. And not only does it carry the Argentine seal of approval, but its iconic flavor profile has not been criminally exploited by American fast food chains. And this could be the King's golden opportunity. Don't just take my word for it. Take Jason's and Burger King, for example. You have to look beyond our difficult history.

I know we've had our opinions on their food in the past and we haven't been that kind. I mean, I know I started my hosting journey by repeatedly slamming your spicy chicken sandwich on the floor, where it belongs. But I think this could be the start of something new, something great. Please give our Whopper a try. And for the rest of you, we'll be sure to keep you informed because there will be a public voting stage where you can help us put our Whopper on the Burger King menu. That is all for now. And remember, that's just a theory.

A food theory. Enjoy.