We’re finally at that jolly phase of the year where we can eat pretty much anything and use the excuse of Xmas! Yes, it’s the snowful (not available in Malta!) season of the year, many love, and many love to hate! This year we’ve noticed an appreciable increase in Xmas-themed burgers compared to 2017, so we had to go around and investigate. The definition of a Xmas burger is a relatively loose one. It needs a top and bottom bun and some festive ingredients, but beyond that, it’s pretty much a free-for-all. Yet we had the decency to skip those burger joints that grab a standard burger from their menu and slap some cranberry sauce on top, to cheat their way to a quick Xmas theme. After much ado about nothing, we ended up in Sliema at Just Burger, which is a surefire place to get a high-standard burger meal for under €10!
Their December burger special is chockful of staple Xmas food, with pulled turkey in gravy, melted brie, Cranberry compote, crisped seasonal vegetables, and their inimitable black Angus beef patty. That’s right, Christmas isn’t all about turkey, and sometimes it’s about cramming all your other ingredients together into one delicious burger! And there’s quite a few here. The shredded Turkey at the very top of the burger is mixed with gravy and painstakingly reduced for 8 to 10 hours. Turkey can quickly dry out in the oven, so here it has been loaded with a thin gravy. The turkey jus itself is made from stock, tomatoes, bacon, garlic and celery. The turkey is slightly smoky and very moist, enveloped in a well-salted mix that makes its presence felt well in the overall burger formula. More flavour comes in the form of cranberry sauce, that is made in-house in the Just Burger kitchen using fresh cranberries, jam, orange zest, star anise and mixed spices. The consistency of the sauce is a bit more syrupy akin of a chutney so it won’t slide down uncontrollably all sides of the burger, and introduces both sweet and tart complex flavours to that of the raw hand-picked jewel-red berry. That classic, tangy, fruity flavour, and pleasing rich texture, here elevated with spices, helps create a balanced and delicious taste, which pushes this burger to further savoury levels. The cranberry pairs really well with the thick slice of brie cheese, which is a soft-ripened cheese with a soft rind around its exterior. It’s melted on top of the beef patty and adds smoothness, creaminess and a sort of woodsy richness.
The base of the bun is layered with veggie crisps made from beetroot & parsnip, which have been marinated in honey and crisped through multiple passes. They are fried, blanched, then oven-baked for 90 minutes, re-fried and let to rest and dry. They add the necessary level of crunch and are a welcome substitute to the usual rucola or lettuce.
Just Burger get their own fresh cuts of Black Angus chuck and mince and create the patty in their own kitchen. There is no closely-guarded recipe here; it’s just quality Swedish beef, that seems to have some extra fat over conventional chuck, so it yields an extra punch of unique flavour that is not found in many other burgers! This patty delivers tenderness and is always juicy and fully flavoured. This is well-matched with their bun, which is made from their own Swedish recipe and produced by a local bakery.
When all the ingredients are piled up on top of each other, this burger soars high. There’s no elegant way to eat this, just grab it with two hands, smash it slowly, and bite your way in! This is basically a miniature Xmas dinner between two buns, and we love that! If it was possible to get high on meat, this would probably do the trick! The burger will stay available until the end of the year, so there’s no one stopping you from eating one or two every week, and make your day jingle! This feels like the sort of burger you absolutely need to do exactly that.
