As @KatieMcBroom shared, many of us on the Local Guides team have been inspired to recreate dishes from our favorite restaurants at home. I have extra reason to participate as I’ve been doubly-inspired by @karenng: first to recreate KFC fried rice and second, because she’s invited me to participate in a weekly cooking challenge known as #qkitch!
In #qkitch, each week six of us amateur chefs cook a recipe that one of the others have picked and as a group we cook the same dish. Last week, we made Fake Shack, or burgers inspired by New York City original, Shake Shack. Since starting out as a counter spot in Madison Square Park, it’s grown to be an international name.
If you know me or have read my reviews, you KNOW I love burgers, so I was excited to make Shake Shack even though I don’t eat there often. Once I got the ingredients (shout out to Shop Rite for having a great Pat LaFrieda mix!), it was a very quick meal to make. Here’s a peek behind the scenes:
Scene 1: Prep is key. I like to get all of my ingredients out and measured before I start cooking to make things easier for me when moving fast:
Scene 2: Timing your meal to finish at the same time is hard but can be done. At the same time I was making Shake Shack for the first time, I decided to also use my air fryer for the first time to make fries.
Scenes 3-4: Not pictures as I was busy assembling my meal.
Scene 5-6: Happiness. I plated my burger then took a bite out of it (hey, I said it was almost too good to eat) and had to admire how perfectly cooked it was even though I usually enjoy burgers medium rare.
I have to say, I don’t usually love Shake Shack (their hot dogs are better to me) but I would make this again and again but not all the time since it’s quite a heavy meal!
This coming week, we’re making pepperoni pan pizza from Emily which has a few locations around NYC but the one in Brooklyn was the first one I visited, so stay tuned for that post, too.
In the meantime, what are you cooking?
You really did a great job. As 
