The happier meal

Although we might hate to admit it these days, now that we frequent fine restaurants and eat food we can barely pronounce, every now and then we still get a sneaky craving for a trip to McDonald's.

It might be followed by an overly dramatic bout of debilitating guilt, but it still happens more than we'd like to mention.

In a bid to take the regret out of the experience, The Grid asked four chefs to transform a classic combo of Big Mac, fries and coke into a five-star dish. The only rule was that they couldn't involve any other ingredients, except for oil and water.

Here are the guilt-free results:

1. The McLumi Platter

This one comes from Fabio Bondi who made mortadella from the patties and served it with lettuce, onion and a sweet and sour sauce. He then toasted the buns and made them into crostini and turned the fries into bread knots.

2. The Big Mac All’Americana

Chefs Craig Harding and Nigel French julienned the fries for spaghetti and turned the patty and ketchup into a bolognese sauce. Instead of parmesan, they toasted the burger and grated it.

3. The Birthday Surprise

The burger was turned into a cake by chef Anthony Rose who iced it with a blend of fries, ketchup, special sauce and Coke. The flowers on the side of the cake are pickles and a Coke reduction was used as sauce. The extra fries were used as candles.

4. The Open-Faced Samosas

Chefs Raj and Aravind Kozhikott diced the meat, mixed it with the onion and added barbecue sauce for the samosa filling wrapped it into two burger buns, which had been rolled out and fried. The cheese was scraped off and used as a sauce.