When Mark first met Dawn, one of her daughters was a vegetarian, it was a phase and now she eats anything and everything, so much so we have to hide food from her! He used to tease her by referring to her food as “garden waste”. In fact, despite eating quite of lot of the
green stuff (given the choice, quite a lot of anything actually), he still does frequently use that term
to describe salad, or anything that could be considered healthy.
It was this term that inspired the title for our home made
spicy veggie burgers. This recipe has
been tried and tested at BBQ’s and Mark has been asked for it frequently. In fact, Keith’s comment on the first post of
this blog (Chicken Kormark) actually requested it.
A cautionary note first.
This mixture can get quite sloppy and is not particularly appetising to
look at. But, even for absolutely committed
carnivores like us, they are incredibly tasty and full of flavour.
So, with our compliments, enjoy these meat free burger
alternatives. This is a doddle with a
food processor but can get heavy on the elbows otherwise as a lot of mashing is
required.
Ingredients (makes 8 medium burgers)
2 tablespoons olive oil (plus more for frying the burgers)2 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
25g coriander leaves
2 x 400g can black eyed beans
100g fresh breadcrumbs
2 small or 1 large egg
1 teaspoon chilli powder or chopped chillies. Increase or decrease to taste.
A good pinch of salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
The prep
1. Peel and finely slice the onions.
2. Peel and finely slice the garlic cloves.
3. Dry fry the cumin seeds on a high heat for 30
seconds or so. (Note – we always do this
with our whole spices as it enhances the flavour like you wouldn’t believe.)
4. Take the coriander leaves off their stems (use a small child for this task if you
like!) and then finely chop.
5. To make the breadcrumbs, we take the crusts off
the bread first. Weigh the bread and
then put in the food processor using the chopping blade. Without the food processor, you could just
tear and crumble it in your hands.
The method
1. Put the oil into a pan and lob in the onion and
garlic; cover and cook for 5-6 minutes.
2. Add the cumin seeds and cook for another 3
minutes or so.
3. Put the pan contents plus the coriander and
beans in the food processor and whizz until a fairly smooth paste.
4. Add the breadcrumbs, egg, chilli powder, salt
and pepper. Whizz again until well mixed.
5. The mixture should now be ready to form the
patties. Top tip – flour your hands and
also put a little flour on the work surface.
6. Because this mixture can be fairly “loose” in its
consistency, getting decent burger shapes can be tricky. We find it best to
grab a handful of the mixture, form it roughly into a ball and then pass from
hand to hand as though holding a hot potato.
After 3 or 4 “passes”, you should have a good burger shape. Flour the
burger at the end to stop it sticking to the surface or plate you put it on.
7. Fry in hot, shallow olive oil until lightly
browned on each side.
8. Serve inside a burger bun with some salad and
maybe a slice of cheese.
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