Veggie burgers: Sweet potato and goat's cheese burger

So I thought it was time for me to let go of Mark Bittman's burger advice, and strike out on my own. I had a couple of burgers in mind, and then the recipe guide of the Albert Heijn also made some suggestions for spring burgers, but in the end I stuck with the first thing that came to mind when I thought about making my own burgers from scratch: sweet potato burgers. With some kind of cheese, preferably goat's cheese.
I Googled a couple of recipes and checked out my own previous work, and all of this combined I came to the following recipe:

Ingredients
400 g sweet potato, peeled and rasped
100 g goat's cheese, in small pieces
1 onion
2 toes garlic
2 eggs
3 tablespoons oats
chives
parsley
pepper

Chop the onion and garlic and combine with the sweet potato. Add all the other ingredients and combine to a mixture with your hands (this will turn your hands a nice bright orange, which was just in time for King's Day today). Leave to rest for about 10 minutes.
Then shape 4-6 burgers out of the mixture. Heat sunflower oil (or any other kind) in a frying pan and bake for 5-8 minutes on both sides. Serve any way you like.

Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, a couple of things didn't really go as planned.

Pre-burger mixture. Looks like I was making a carrot cake burger.

At first, I added only the one egg, but this didn't really work. The mixture was a) too wet and b) not in any way coming together as burgers. So I added another egg (which made two in total, as stated above) to help with the combining issues, and then I added more oats to help with the moisture. This all helped somewhat to get a proper burger mixture.

Carrot cake burgers a-baking.

Then for the burgers: I made four, as I was joined by my trusty burger tester, but they were way to thick. This meant that both sides were baking nicely, but the middle part was still pretty wet. Also, it made turning them pretty impossible. If I'd made six (or even eight) burgers out of the mixture, it would have worked out easier. The amounts were okay for two people, although maybe you could tone it down to 300 g sweet potatoes for two people (I only add a salad, nothing like chips or potatoes or anything). They were pretty unsteady to begin with, and their size didn't help, so these were the least consistent burgers I've made so far.

Sweet potato burger mess.

So they looked pretty messy. But what about the taste? Well, they tasted really really good. The overall taste was sweet (what can you expect, with sweet potato?), but not too sweet. The sweet potato came through nicely, as did the goat's cheese. The herbs were not that prominent, but they added something.  The texture was also really nice: crispy on the outside and quite moist on the inside. Very, very far removed from any meat burger you'll ever eat, but that's the whole point of vegetarian burgers!

I'd call this a burger success, although as with all my previous burgers, there are some points of improvement. But that's why we call it an experiment! Can't wait to try some of my other ideas.

Veggie burgers: Nut burger

As promised in my spring veg burger post, the next type of veggie burger I've attempted was the nut burger. Again, I tried the easiest type in The Fat Vegetarian first, figuring that I have to crawl before I can run (or something like that). The most basic nut burger recipe is called 'Quick nut burgers', and that is what they were; done in a breeze.

Nut burgers are made with nuts, obviously, which gives them the protein richness lacking from the spring veg burger. But are they better in other ways as well?

Ingredients

1 onion

150 g nuts, raw (can be walnuts, pecan nuts, almonds, cashew nuts or any other kind)

80 g oats (not instant)

2 tablespoons ketchup, miso, tomato puree or nut paste (I used curry sauce)

1 tablespoon chili powder or other spice mix

salt and pepper

1 egg

peanut oil (Mark specifically states to use peanut oil or any other kind of flavourless oil, as otherwise the burgers will simply taste of oil)

Like with the bean burger, you need a food processor. Chop up the onion until fine. Add the nuts and oats and pulse to combine. Add the ketchup, spices, pepper, salt and egg. Pulse until the mixture combines, but it is good to leave some bigger chunks in there. Add some more moisture (water, wine, soy sauce) if the mixture is too dry.

Leave the mixture to settle for a couple of minutes and then shape four burgers (it is probably a good idea to do this with 'wet hands', although the recipe doesn't state this specifically, as my hands were covered in oats and bits of nut afterwards). 

Heat the peanut oil in a frying pan, bake the burgers for about 5 minutes on each side, and serve any way you like.

Sounds pretty familiar, right? The recipe is pretty much like the bean burgers recipe of my first attempt and like those consisted mostly of beans, these burgers are basically made of nothing but nuts. The mixture looks pretty similar too.

 

Pre-processing mixture. It felt like I was making a very healthy breakfast.

Post-processing mixture. Doesn't look too appealing.

Right, this might be good time to mention that I have two cats in the house, but they had nothing to do with making this burger mixture...

The mixture was a bit dry. I added the right amount of moisture at the right moments, but somehow it didn't feel the way the bean mixture felt, so I was pretty convinced these burgers were going to fall apart upon baking. Anyway, after shaping the mixture into four burgers, I was determined not to flunk on the baking aspect again. I was gently reminded of this by my meat eater fellow burger tester, so I heated the oil for a bit longer to properly sear the burgers. 

Too much searing going on...

Yes, well, I may have overdone that a little bit. Also, two of the burgers did actually fall apart into crumbly pieces, but the other two turned out fine (if a bit black).

Pretty burger end result.

Right, so what were they like? Surprisingly not-dry! For something that fell apart in the pan, the burgers were pretty moist. Also, very very tasty. Nutty, a little bit spicy, probably what flavour experts would call 'umami'. My meat eater burger companion thought these the best burgers so far. And they were stomach filling! It took a while to finish them off.

I would add some more spices next time, and probably add a bit more moisture to keep the burgers from falling apart, but otherwise this was probably the most successful attempt so far.

Now I feel like I've had the main three categories of burgers: bean burgers, nut burgers and potato burgers. You can always make burgers out of tofu or seitan, but I hardly ever eat that normally, so I don't really plan on turning those into burgers. So with the three main burger food groups under my belt, I feel ready to experiment with some more combinations, flavours and textures. I'd love to replicate the sweet potato burger I had in a restaurant recently, and I also want to attempt a black bean burger steal from another restaurant. Also, I'd like to add some cheese to some of my burgers, just to see how that turns out. And maybe some vegetables, apart from the peas. The possibilities are almost endless... I will keep you posted on my culinary experiments!

Veggie burgers: Spring veg burger

After my first attempt at a home-made veggie burger, I was in the mood for more. In The Fat Vegetarian (I'll stick with that name for now), Mark Bittman lists a one per season of the year. Officially it is still winter, but with the balmy 16 degrees we've had last week, it felt more like spring to me. So I decided to skip the 'robust winter veg' burger in favour of the 'spring burger with fresh veg' (again; I'm translating back from Dutch so the actual title in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is probably different). The actual recipe calls for green asparagus, which I thought was a bit too early, so I replaced those with green beans.

Ingredients:
450 g potatoes, in small cubes
salt
3-4 tablespoons of butter (tablespoons is a weird quantity to use for butter)
100 g green asparagus/green beans/snow peas/etc
150 g peas (can be frozen, defrost before use)
30 g mixed herbs (parsley, mint, chives, etc)
pepper

Right, so I forgot to buy fresh herbs. I had some very sad parsley that survived the winter, so I used that, but it was closer to 3 g than 30. You can do without, but I do think the burgers are probably a lot better with the actual amount of fresh herbs.

Boil the potatoes with a little salt for 20 minutes.
Melt one tablespoon of butter in a pan and bake the asparagus/green beans/what have you for a couple of minutes. Add the peas and herbs (if you have them), sprinkle in some salt and bake until hot. Put into a big bowl.
Add the potatoes and mash together. You can leave in some bigger chunks but make sure everything is well combined (this sounds to me like the 'fine breadcrumbs' stage of pastry making; something that works on the page but you can never be sure is actually happening in real life). Sprinkle in some pepper and salt. Leave to set for a couple of minutes.
Shape 4-6 burgers out of the mixture (you don't need wet hands for these, shaping went pretty easy). Melt two tablespoons of butter in a pan, add the burgers and bake for about 5 minutes on each side. They should be browned and stick together properly. Serve any way you like.

So this recipe basically lets you make mashed potato with herbs, and then makes burgers out of that. Sounds a bit weird, but works surprisingly well.

Veg baking and potato boiling in process.

Baking the mashed potato lumps.

 Okay, so this looks pretty weird. It is literally mashed potato, beans and peas baking. Also, I set the fire too low again, which meant two of the burgers were nice and brown but the other two were sad and soggy and kept falling apart. I should really keep in mind to keep the fire burning higher when I bake burgers. In this case, they could hardly dry out as the potato mixture kept everything pretty moist.

The end result.

So, weird as they may look, they actually tasted really really good. The beans were probably not the best addition, as they didn't add anything taste-wise and were still a bit hard, but the potato/pea mixture was great. My meat eater fellow diner agreed; these were a lot better than the first attempt, but also better than some of the burgers you find in restaurants (although I ate a sweet potato burger the next day that was divine). Also, they are actually pretty healthy. If you leave out the sauces (you don't actually need to add any sauce) you're basically eating your two veg a day. Not a lot of protein though, which is kind of the thing vegetarians need to get from burgers. In that respect the bean burger was the better choice.
I do wonder what these taste like when you actually add the proper amount of herbs, so I will be making these again to find out. Probably without the green beans, as they don't really add anything, but then again you could make these with loads of different kinds of veg and still come out with a pretty decent burger.

Next up (unless I change my mind): nut burgers!

Veggie burgers: A first attempt

So I'm a vegetarian. Have been for all my life. Also, I like to eat burgers. Not hamburgers, obviously, but veggie burgers. These come in all shapes and sizes: travelling through the USA I was surprised at how inventive and tasty some of these burgers can be; sweet potato burgers, bean burgers, but also soy burgers with nice spice or texture mixes added. In The Netherlands, the amount of veggie burgers on offer is growing steadily; if you're lucky, you'll get one from the 'Vegetarian Butcher', a big meat-replacement producer. If you're even luckier, you'll get a homemade burger.
Now I don't really eat shop-bought veggie burgers at home, because burgers aren't really healthy and the few evenings I spend at home during a week I actually want to eat something that's good for me. Lots of veggies. Lots of protein. Not a lot of fat or carbs.
But wait a minute. Doesn't the term 'veggie burger' actually tell you these are made of vegetables? And if you leave out the fries and the fatty sauces, add in a salade, isn't that actually a pretty decent meal? Am I now just deluding myself because I smell a new project coming and want to dive straight into it? All true!

So I've decided I'm going to try and make some veggie burgers myself. From scratch. I'll get a meat eater to join me every time I make one for dinner, just so I can get the opinion of someone who hasn't been that used to eating veggie burgers. I'll make a little project out of this, no idea how long this will be, but we'll see.
I made my first burgers yesterday evening. I have a cookbook called The Fat Vegetarian in Dutch, not because you get fat (at least I hope so) but because it has over 2,000 vegetarian recipes. It's by American food journalist Mark Bittman, the English title is a pretty boring How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (you probably don't sell many books in the USA if you put the word 'fat' on the cover). Mark covers all kinds vegetarian burgers and burger-like recipes; meatballs, meatloaves, schnitzels, whatever you want (also a ton of other recipes, as you probably wouldn't fill a cookbook with 2,000 veggie burger recipes). The only downside to this cookbook is that it has hardly any pictures. Also, it's pretty heavy. On the upside, it has a reading ribbon, which is one of my favourite things in the world.

Anyway, I decided to start simple, with the 'simplest pulse burger' (I'm translating back from Dutch here, so it may well be called differently in English). The recipe is supposed to cover 4 people, but we were hungry so we had two burgers each. I'll share the recipe with you here, for anyone crazy enough to follow me on my veggie burger journey.

Ingredients:
- 250 cooked beans, or a 400 g can, drained. Can be any type of bean: black, red, kidney, or even chickpeas, lentils, whatever you want. I used a can of kidney beans.
- 1 onion, quartered
- 40 g oats (not instant)
- spices: I used pepper, chili pepper, ground garlic and paprika
- 1 egg
Mark tells us to add extra liquid if we need it, but I didn't.

You need a food processor to make this. Basically dump all the ingredients in the food processor and pulse a couple of times until you have some sort of a mixture. Don't make it too smooth, Mark tells us. I probably made it a bit too smooth. Leave to settle for a while.
With wet hands, shape 4 - 6 burgers out of the mixture. Leave to settle again.
Pour some oil in a frying pan and let it heat for about 1 minute. Put the burgers into the pan and heat for about 5 minutes on each side. Serve any way you like.

Now, doesn't that sound simple? Easy breezy!
Just a couple of things:
- oats? What am I, a horse? Also; oats are corse and grainy, what are they going to make my burger taste like?
- why can't my mixture be smooth? What's it going to do?
- wet hands? Really?
- how is this wet mess of things ever going to resemble a burger?
- how is letting things settle going to change anything?
- how is this wet mess of things with chunks of onion and egg ever going to be tasty?

But lo and behold. It actually worked out fine.

The mixture pre-settlement. Do I spot an oat?

So it does look a bit like a weird mess at first. But if you let it settle for a while, the oats seem to soak up some of the moisture, and also the egg does some sort of binding magic. No idea what happens, but the mixture felt pretty nice and consistent. Almost like how I imagine minced meat to feel (not that I'd ever thought about that before).
The 'shape with wet hands' works like a charm, too. The burgers don't stick to your hands but do stick to themselves. Neat!

The burgers a-baking.

Then when you bake them, you should actually turn the heat up pretty high, and add lots of oil. To someone used to baking burgers this probably sounds pretty logical, but for me it was one of the first times, so my burgers became a bit dry as I had to fry them for longer to get them to brown. Also, a couple fell apart upon turning, probably because they hadn't browned/bonded enough on the bottom. But they came out pretty well.

I like big burgers and I cannot lie...

Okay, so the taste was not super. It was fine, but somewhat lacking in taste. You couldn't taste the onion that much, nor the oats at all (luckily). Will have to add higher amount of spices next time to get some flavour. Because they were pretty dry, we added a pretty big amount of chili sauce to get some sort of taste out of them, and also add some moisture. Funnily enough, the meat eater enjoyed the taste of the plain burger more than I did. The texture was good, again a bit dry, but not unpleasant. All in all, a pretty good first attempt, I would say!

So this was my first try; it's also one of the easiest burgers in the book. I may have another go with a different type of pulse, or I may upgrade to a whole other kind of burger altogether. Mark lists loads more options, and beside him there must be loads of other veggie burger recipes out there. I'll keep you posted!

Protein

As you may or may not know, I am a vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian for 26 years (yes, that is how old I am), and I can overall say that I am happy, healthy, and not falling apart, like some people tend to think when you tell them you live without meat (and fish, and chicken...). I will not get into the whole why and "isn't it hard?" stuff here, if you really want to know more about it you can ask me. I would like to say that I am not principally against eating animals; we humans are a omnivorous species, and I would love to if I knew that the animal had had a good life, hadn't been stuffed with antibiotics and growth hormones and other horrible things, and a piece of rain forest hadn't been floored to feed it. As those things are currently not really possible without paying half your salary for it, I'd rather stick to vegetarianism.

So last weekend we were eating at the house of a friend of mine, and he had pulled a vegetarian recipe from the Internet (he does not mind cooking without meat, but he lacks the culinary imagination to come up with something himself). It was a lasagna dish. Now about 90% of all the lasagna I have eaten (it's usually the default "vegetarian" dish in restaurants, the other option being a pepper stuffed with vegetables or couscous) were spinach with either bechamel or cheese sauce. This lasagna was no different. However, then someone decided to throw a whole load of proteins at the dish. Officially, it consisted of pasta, 250 g spinach, 250 g ricotta, 250 g mozzarella, 2 eggs, cheese sauce, and grated cheese. Now firstly, 250 g spinach for 4 people is just scandalous. I would have thrown in about 4 times that amount. But the protein thing is just out of control. Luckily, my friend also realised this and left the ricotta and cheese sauce out of it, but we still ended up with quite a cheesy meal.
I have seen this done before. Non-vegetarians tend to go "oh my! we need protein! what has protein? cheese! add cheese! and eggs! and nuts! and mushrooms!" until there is no sense or logic to the dish and you're just spooning the stuff up. This is very good, and sweet, and considerate, in a way. We need protein, it's hard to get enough in your system when you're a vegetarian, so it's good they think about it. However, the important thing to remember is that we vegetarians are used to eating very little protein. We can cope with it. (I know this is the most difficult thing for meat-eaters who go vegetarian; the sudden loss of protein in their diet. But once your body is used to it, you're fine not eating that much protein. And I am one of the lucky ones who started out low, so my body is fully adapted.) And the meat-eater who goes vegetarian for a day will have no problems, except that they usually feel they haven't eaten enough. So there really is no need throwing all that cheese and nuts and tofu and whatever in our general directions.

 But still, it's better than the other extreme, which is the "meat analogue" or "meat substitue" group. I have never understood why the things vegetarians can pick up to substitute meat have to look like meat. Apart from the generally tragically bad taste (it tastes like dust or soy, which are both unpleasant), it does not work in 2 ways; firstly, the vegetarian does not want to eat meat, nor something that looks like meat, so they generally don't buy it, and secondly, the meat-eater compares it to meat, isn't fooled and goes "this is horrible and disgusting and tastes nothing like meat! I will stick to meat!" so you lose out on both sides. Case in point: yesterday, we ate hamburgers with a salad, because this is easy and quite fresh, and it was unusually warm outside. I bought 2 (organic) hamburgers for my boyfriend, but for myself I didn't go for the "faux meat" hamburger, I bought falafel. Falafel is vegetarian without trying to be meat. And it actually tastes good. Luckily, most supermarkets have by now realised this mistake, and they actually sell some things that do not try to be meat, like cheese schnitzels or fritatta or vegetable things with cheese. Which usually taste good, because they're not something that looks like meat and tries to taste like meat while consisting of tofu or quorn or baked milk or whatever. (However, you can still be fooled. A couple of months ago we ate in an organic/ partly-vegetarian restaurant and I ordered the "brie schnitzel", thinking I was in for a treat, but I turned out they'd just cut open one of those horrible tofu-y shop-bought schnitzels, stuffed a slice of brie inside and baked it. I have rarely been this disappointed, because the restaurant appeared to be generally vegetarian-friendly.)

Now it may sound as if it's horrible being a vegetarian, but generally, it's pretty neat. When I cook at home I just cook whatever I like, and I never go "owh, there's no meat in here, whatever will I do to substitute it?!" but just think logically. No need to panic, no need to count every miligram of protein until you've had your fill. And when you go out to restaurants, the choice is usually limited so that you can easily choose what you want, making life easy. Or you can go out to nice, small, hidden vegetarian restaurants where eating out becomes a whole different experience (and these are literally everywhere). Moreover, whenever you get to another continent, you realise that being a vegetarian is pretty normal. There are many religions which are wholly or partly vegetarian. I've never had difficulties in Africa or the Middle East, whereas in some Dutch restaurants I've been looked at like I had some sort of disease (which is weird, because I never comment on other people eating meat, because I believe in "live and let live", whereas I've had to explain and defend my way of living countless times. In the West, that is. Where we have enough food and wealth and freedom to let everyone choose for themselves). Moreover, it was just a couple of decades ago that only the really really rich in the western world could actually eat meat every day, the poor were happy to get it at Christmas and Easter and harvest festivals.

So really, I don't see what the problem is. And thankfully, more and more people are beginning to realise the same thing. Again, it's not that I want the whole world to go vegetarian, it's just that it would be nice if people thought things through before they judge, or buy, or put a recipe online. And in the meantime, I'm perfectly able to sort things out for myself, even if it does mean I sometimes get bombarded with a protein overload.