Given that I live in a town where the closest burger to be had after six o’clock is two miles away and I’m not that dedicated to McDonalds I have been on a quest to create my own big, tasty burger.

The first one arrived after a day’s struggle.  Do you know how difficult it is to find bacon, in Newark, on New Year’s Day?  Not easy, but I found some after a long walk to the nearest Spar shop, and combined with a plain burger it was heavenly.  But not quite good enough.  Months later the next breakthrough was the quarter pounder with chilli, available in most good supermarkets.  I felt it needed onion, but I had none, sadface.    Then, in a moment of inspiration I found a jar of caramelised onion relish and voila.

Not done yet though.  Later in the year I read that McDonalds’ Big Mac dressing was similar to Thousand Island Dressing so off to the shops I went and that evening I slapped some on the other side of the chilli quarter pounder to the onion relish.  Do you hear the sound of angelic singing?  As Adam Richman (Man v Food) might say “Oh my goodness, oh, my, goodness”.

I’ve tried adding lettuce, tried substituting the Thousand Island for beef chilli (need a smock to eat that one), and tried adding salami to the mix, along with occasional experiments with various cheeses.

The result of all this?

My personal favourite – lightly toasted soft large sesame bap (Morrisons) + caramelised onion relish (Asda) + chilli quarter pounder (Morrisons) + Wensleydale cheese with or without cranberries (Anywhere) + Thousand Island Dressing (Morrisons) + two crispy onion rings on top of the dressing

You bite in, and experience not an explosion of flavours and textures so much as a sequence as you hit crispy onion, tangy sauce, frisky spicy beef then sweet onion.  Eat with thin fries dusted in salt.

I love it, but that’s just me.