BK’s Kuro Burger Recipe! (Black Cheeseburger!)

Hey guys! Thanks for stopping by Ballistic BBQ. Please, forgive me for what you’re about to see me do. Now, that being said, let’s do it.

Alright, now it seems that the Burger Kings in Japan have actually come out with a burger they call Kuro. Now that means “black” in Japanese. They have two burgers, the Black Pearl and the Black Diamond.

Black Pearl has basically a black bun, black cheese, black like an onion jam, and the burger has been seasoned with black pepper. Black Diamond is basically the same burger but only has lettuce and tomato and you know all that jazz.

Anyway, I’m making the Black Pearl. I just think it looks wild, just that jet-black burger. Not really making this with the intent of saying “hey, guys, make this burger!” It’s more of a challenge to myself and I’m just sort of bringing you guys along on the ride.

So anyway, let’s start with this black bun.

Now I did a lot of research online trying to find recipes for black buns. I found one blog, it’s called the Brown Eyed Chef, and she does a lot of Japanese cooking. And, so this Japanese burgers is gonna work out fine. She actually did this bread and in a like a roll and she turned it black using bamboo charcoal, which is what they’re using in Burger King.

So let’s start off with two and a half cups of bread flour. Just put that in a bowl here.

This is 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons of caster sugar. Now, here in the US we call it baker’s sugar, but It’s just a really finely ground cane sugar.

We’re gonna start off with 1 tablespoon of that food-grade bamboo charcoal, and I found this stuff online, it’s readily available online.

2 teaspoons of active dry yeast.

1 teaspoon salt.

Going to go ahead and get this all mixed up. And, if this isn’t black enough for me, then I’m going to add a little bit more of that charcoal. I don’t want a gray bun.

And it is looking just sort of gray, these dry ingredients, so I’m adding one more tablespoon, to see what happens.

It’s looking better. I’m sure it will darken up a bit too as it bakes.

So I’m gonna go ahead and set this aside.

And the next step will be to add our wet ingredients. We’re gonna add them in a separate bowl, whisk them together.

I have here ½ cup of whole milk. 1 large egg. 3 tablespoons of room temperature butter that I’ve cut up into little, like dices, I guess. Throw those in here.

I know I’m going to butcher the pronunciation of this next ingredient, but it’s the Japanese called “Tangzhong”, sorry Japan. Basically what it is, it’s a five to one ratio, of five parts water, one part of the bread flour, and what they do is mix it up really well, heat it up, and you’re basically just getting all that gluten going and you’re thickening it up. We’re gonna add that in here.

This is a hundred and twenty grams. I just measured it. We’re using their table.

Alright, we’re gonna go ahead and whisk this together.

Alright, these ingredients are pretty well mixed up, butter still needs to break down a little bit, but I’m sure the mixer will handle that. It’s off the side. Let’s go ahead and bring that mixer back into play here.

Alright, what I’m going to do now is just make it like a well in the middle of this, the dry ingredients here. So, that’s what I’m gonna pour the wet ingredients into.

You’ll dough hook on, put this on low for a little bit. Basically what I’m looking for is a very kind of elastic yeah almost like a pizza dough.

Alright, the dough is pulling away from the walls now, cleanly, and it’s wrapped around that dough that looks very, very elasticky.

[laughs] Looks like tar.

Anyway, we’re gonna go ahead and put this in a greased bowl now.

Alright, so what I’m gonna do now is cover this with some cling wrap and just let it sit at room temperature. I wanna proof this. We’re gonna let it rise to about double its current size.

In the meantime, we’re gonna start making the black “cheese”. See you in a bit.

Alright, so the next thing we’re going to do is make that black “cheese”.

Now I found a recipe online, it was for kind of like a processed cheesed. I’m going to post all these recipes down below by the way and we’re gonna tweak this, make it our own, make it black.

So I’m gonna start out with 12 oz. of shredded Colby cheese. It’s about three cups of cheese here. This is finely shredded.

Alright, the next ingredient is going to be 1 tablespoon of powdered milk. Now, the recipe is actually calling for powdered whole milk, saying that it does make a difference. I couldn’t find it. I’m guessing you have to order it, so I will. I made a little change to the recipe that I think will help. So anyway, I’ve been able to add that in here.

Next ingredient is going to be 1/8 teaspoon and cream of tartar and 1 teaspoon salt. So we’re gonna go ahead and just pulse this together about three quick pulses. Alright, that was more than three.

Alright, the next ingredient is going to be ½ cup whole milk with an additional 2 tablespoon of that whole milk. Now, since I did not have the whole powdered milk, what I’ve done is I have here ½ cup of whole milk with an addition of 2 tablespoon of cream. And I’m hoping that extra milk that will kind of remedy the problem of not having that whole powdered milk. What I’m going to do now is boil this and add 1 teaspoon of gelatin, non-flavored gelatin, that I’ve mixed with about a tablespoon of water. I’ve dissolved it in the water. So I’m gonna do that off-camera. Basically I’m just going to bring it to a boil and whisk this gelatin in and then we’re gonna add it to this, so I’ll see you in a little bit.

Alright, I have the hot milk with the dissolved gelatin in here. I can get this good food processor on. You’re going to add this milk gelatin mixture slowly into the food processor.

Now, what I’m going to add is I have enough a couple teaspoons of squid ink.

Alright. [laughs] Look at that guys; it’s pretty gnarly. Alright let’s move on to the next procedure in this “cheese” thing here.

Alright, what I have here is a glass loaf pan and I’ve coated it with oil. Now, in the, on the website, the gentleman that made this processed “cheese”, he used a disposable loaf pan and lined it with plastic lining. I think this will, maybe even a little better, I don’t know, we’ll see.

Getting ink all over my hands here. This is not clean. So what I’m gonna do is get this into the loaf pan. You know what I’m gonna do is go ahead and place this because it is firming up. I’m gonna go ahead and just cram it into the edge of this pan, and that way, I’ll be able to kind of slice more of a, like a cheese slice off of it rather than just molding a slice of cheese. It’s like I said I’m guessing the reason you use the disposable pan is you use one of the little guys, but this is already sitting up really good here.

Alright. Should I—yeah, tastes kind of like Cheez Whiz.

Alright, what I’m gonna do is cover this in cellophane and put it in the fridge.

Alright guys, so in the spirit of keeping this video length below an hour long, I’ve opted not to videotape certain things. The cheese turned out great, set up it in the fridge, I sliced it, you get to see the cheese when I do to cook, the—[trails off]

I need the onion garlic jam, really good, it’s basically just a reduction and there is some squid ink here that gives it the black color.

I have the dough. It’s been proofed. So on this flour counter, I went ahead and deflated it already. This is the part I’m worried about so I just wanted to focus on this. So we’re gonna go ahead and make those bread rolls, you know, the hamburger, guys.

Not really sure how large to make these, just because I don’t know what to expect as far if it’s the charcoal spreading effect, the yeast, or anything, so I’m gonna make different sizes and I’m sure I only want one burger. I’m sure I’ll get at least one right.

I again, went ahead and it’s pretty darn black. I went ahead and cut this with no flour. Putting this on a just a cookie sheet. I put parchment on here. It’s a non-stick cookie sheet, but I wanted to give that contrast because these are black.

I have my oven preheated for 350 degrees. These are going in the oven. You don’t need to see that. I’m going to start checking in about 15 minutes. I’m not really sure how long they’re gonna take to bake. I’ll let you know. So I’ll see you soon as these buns are done. Fingers crossed guys.

Alright, the bread is done. It actually smells insane, I mean, it smells really good. I did learn a lesson, however. Again, I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect as far as how big these rolls were going to get as they baked. I wish I would have made them just a little bigger. What I’m getting up with now is a small cheeseburger or a big slider.

So, they’re definitely smaller than I wanted to, you know, have. But I’m not worried about it. All in all, this is kind of an experiment for me and I think it’s turning out good. So if you decide to try this recipe, just make sure you make the buns, the dough balls, a little larger than I did.

But anyway, these are pretty hot right now, but we’re gonna go ahead and show you the inside. Look at that. Still steaming hot. This is the one I had all the flour on the outside so I’m sacrificing this one.

This is the most, like, the nicest one as far as you know, getting around, so we’re gonna be using that for the actual burger, and I’ve already tried this on one of those, the really small one. It tastes really good, actually.

Now, there is a very, very slight creaminess that you detect from that charcoal. I did double them beyond a charcoal that the blogger used, so I don’t know if that’s why, but I know that charcoal is not going to dissolve. There in some of the articles I read on the cheese, they’re saying that bamboo charcoal is actually used in the cheese. I opted to go with the squid ink, just because of this reason. I did not see, you know, in my mind, as I thought of the bamboo charcoal it breaking down and I didn’t want a grainy cheese. So, the squid ink actually worked perfect and it tastes, you know, like American processed cheese stuff.

Anyway, I let these cool a bit. I will meet you out at the grill where we’re gonna fire this thing up and make us a Kuro Black Pearl. See it in a bit guys.

Alright guys, everything’s done. We’re ready to make a Kuro Burger now. Got the flat top preheated.

First thing we’re going to do is season this patty. Gotta have a little bit of salt on my burger, so I’m gonna go ahead and hit it with some salt. Then, a decent amount of black pepper, get that down on the flat top. More salt, more black pepper.

Alright, as you can see, getting some good color on the side, we’re gonna go and flip this.

Nice crust. Black pepper is really cooking off. I mean it’s, I can really smell it.

Alright guys, looking good. Smell and get again that pepper, it’s just really cooking off. Now, let’s go to make us a Kuro burger.

Alright. So first things first, we got to lay that burger down. And this is, 80/20 sirloin, just I didn’t mention that earlier.

Now, that freaky cheese I made, and this onion garlic jam, and again it’s just a slowly reduced, unchopped onion and garlic jam with a little black soy sauce, like a couple teaspoons of black soy sauce, and some black squid ink, and about a half a teaspoon of the black squid ink, and also about a teaspoon of sugar.

Here’s that, but I didn’t show you think the inside, pretty cool.

Now, I hit the surface of the bun with just a little bit of clarified butter to kind of give it that shine, like they have in that little promo picture. And I know, the patties are a lot thicker than Burger King would use but, I figured I’m going through all this trouble. I want a burger that I want to eat. I think; I don’t know if I want to eat it, but we’re gonna give it a shot.

It’s frightening, looking at, I’ll tell you that. But individually, everything tastes pretty decent, so let’s give this a go here.

You know as far as the flavor is concerned, just a really basic cheeseburger, nothing special about it. The cheese, it does taste like that processed, you know, quote American cheese that kind of cheap stuff.

I really like that the, the relish that I made, it taste pretty darn good. You don’t taste any weird fishiness from the squid ink, or anything. And, all in all, I’m pretty darn happy with it. I mean, it’s freaking weird-looking. But all in all, I’m glad I did it.

And thank you guys for joining me on this journey. Please, when you’re hovering over those thumb up, thumb down button, trying to figure out what to hit, I know it’s gnarly-looking, but a lot of work went into this. So I’m hoping for the entertainment value alone thumbs up.

Anyway guys, thanks again for stopping by my channel. I really appreciate it. Thank you to my wife putting up with this mess that I just made in the kitchen. Cheers!

Source: Ballistic BBQ