Spicy vegan burger patty

Vegan burger patties

There is something comforting about burgers, and I really want to come up with a good satisfying vegan burger that one can serve up to the carnivore friends.

I have made a few in the past, and although not bad at all, I don’t think any were the ‘ultimate’. (see here )

So here is another go.

I used a vegan patty recipe from Leafy Greens Cafe by Antonia De Luca again as a starting point, but made some modifications of my own.

My ingredients:

1 C         onion, finely chopped
1/2 C      carrots, finely chopped
1/2 C      red pepper, finely chopped
1/2 C      mushrooms, finely chopped
4            cloves of garlic
4 C         cooked quinoa (preferably organic)
3 t           cumin powder
3 t           cayenne pepper
2 T          oil
1 tin         red kidney beans (410 grms), drained just to the extent the very runny liquid is removed.
1/2 C       raw organic oats
                salt to taste

Method:

1. Cook up the quinoa. You will need 2 C of dry quinoa and 4 cups water in the pot. It cooks quite quickly so keep an eye on it, stirring frequently, and add a touch more water if necessary. You do not want the cooked quinoa too wet.
Once cooked, set aside to cool.

2. Heat the oil in a pan saute the onion, garlic, carrots, peppers and mushrooms till soft.

3. Stir in the cumin, cayenne pepper and salt.

4. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

5. Once all ingredients have cooled, put the veg mixture, quinoa, beans and oats into a food processor and pulse till it is well mixed but still a little bit chunky.

6. Form into burger patties. I got 12 medium sized patties from it (as in the picture)

7. To serve you can fry or bake – we chose to bake them, and serve up with salads etc.

Note – for step 5 – add the quinoa last. Only add 4 cups of the cooked product first. Depending on how the cooking of the quinoa went, you might have ended up with more than 4 cups of cooked grain. You can add the rest in if needed. You don’t want to end up with ‘quinoa burgers’.

The end result –

Our guests (all carnivores!) pronounced them very good. For me personally, they were a touch on the hot and spicy side, so you might want to reduce the amount of cayenne pepper to taste.

Of course, these are only the patties. We still need a burger. As we are trying to get away from refined carbohydrates, I don’t want to use bread rolls.
I want to try using baked aubergine slices as the ‘bun’. But that is still to come.

Bon apetit.