today's keto lunch

I made my modified version of Joe Duff's burger buns for today's keto burgers:

The foreground bun looks huge, but that's
just because of the foreshortened perspective.

The patties I cooked last night:

Here are the patties, topped with Gruyère cheese and bacon, then microwaved at the office and ready for stacking (I didn't realize Gruyère sweated so much when microwaved):

The buns smelled wonderful last night, and I really wanted to tear into one, but yesterday was a fasting day, so I could only enjoy the aroma. The buns swelled up to impressive size this time around, and they had a better shape to them, possibly because I added oat fiber instead of the extra almond flour the recipe called for. Here's a cross-section, right before I slathered on my two sauces: BBQ and homemade ranch (which I made without tasting—fasting day, remember—and which ended up being rather spicy).

The burgers with everything but pickles and tomatoes:

A separate shot of the pickles and tomatoes (unsweetened pickles courtesy of Coupang):

And finally, the fully dressed burgers:

All in all, a rib-sticking meal, but because these buns ended up bigger than last time, the bread was way too heavy. There are a couple possible fixes if I stick with this recipe: (1) make smaller, skinnier buns like last time, maybe 6 buns instead of 4; or, (2) make the dough into a standard bread loaf, now that I have bread pans, and simply slice the bread thinly after baking it and letting it cool. I don't necessarily like my burgers to be on sliced bread, but that's more of an aesthetic quibble than anything else. If sliced bread somehow improves the burger-eating experience, then I'll try it (and maybe I'll toast the bread next time). I also have other burger-bun recipes that I want to try, so maybe I'll turn to those recipes and see what happens.

I found a new YouTuber who specializes in keto bread, and who puts subtitles on her videos in English, Korean, and sometimes French. I get the feeling she's Korean, but it tickles me that she's using the same three languages I'm familiar with. Judging by the veins in her hands, she's an older ajumma, but I admire her slow deliberateness, which comes through even though I'm watching her videos at 1.75X speed. Anyway, her keto breads look very impressive, and they seem to have a really good texture.

I have plenty more burgers in storage, and the search for perfect buns continues. With this new YouTuber, though, I'm hopeful that my search has come to an end.

Oh, yeah—the burgers themselves were great. I think I chose a good combination of meats to grind. Next time, though, I need to sear them harder and leave them very rare on the inside because, when I take the burgers to the office, I finish them in our office microwave.