New Delhi :Over the past few months foodies have been flooding social networking sites with pictures of burgers in two uncanny colours black and red!
The newest entrant to the family of coloured burgers is now white. Launched by Barcelos, a South Africa based food chain that had previously introduced the black burger to India.
Much like its black and red counterparts, the white burger has a mayonnaise, green pepper, mango chilli, orange and chilli garlic topped white cottage cheese patty stuffed between a white bun.
“I would not call it a colour, because in the normal bun they use flour and other ingredients which turn out to be brown. We just used different ingredients which came out as different colours,” says Rohit Malhotra, GM, Operation, Barcelos.
While the black and red burgers were novel innovations by the Portuguese food chain, the white burger was already being sold by them in South Africa.
“White has been there with us in South Africa for a long time. We have been selling this there for the last few years. All we did here was to add more flavours,” says Malhotra.
The bun in the white burger gets its colour from a mix of milk powder, coconut and plain flour.
The idea of bringing out a coloured burger first struck Malhotra when he chanced upon a black one himself at an eatery in Paris.
“I saw this concept few years ago, where a restaurant in Paris was selling coloured burgers, we picked it up from there,” he says.
The international food chain Burger King had also introduced their black “Kuro Burger” with black cheese and black sauce in 2012 in Japan.
Believed to have been “dyed” with squid ink and bamboo charcoal, they were not received with much enthusiasm.
Barcelos, here however appear to have chosen ingredients which are believably edible, particularly for an Indian clientele.
“Squid ink couldn’t be used here for obvious reasons, and we found bamboo charcoal a little risky because it might have backfired. People might not understand that bamboo charcoal is edible. We did not want to experiment that,” says Malhotra.
The black burger at Barcelos, therefore gets its colour from a combination of wholemeal flour, roasted wheat, herbs and spinach extract.
The black patty, both Peri Peri Black Beauty(Veg) and Black Magic(Non-Veg), are doused in mozzarella cheese and topped with jalapeno and pickled beetroot, giving the burger a tangy flavour.
PTI