Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto Burger

From The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet, Joni Marie Newman, Fair Winds Press, 2011.

I’ve tried several burgers from this book and while they tend to be all right and interesting in their own right I have still to find one that might be classified as ‘the best veggie burger on the planet’. The best veggie burge I have found to suit my tastes was found in Plenty. This was a broad bean burger. But I still continued my search and tried a sun-dried tomato and pesto burger.

To begin I put on some rice to boil, sufficient to make 2 cups.

Next an onion and 250 grams of chopped mushrooms were fried until their quantity had reduced to about half.

While this was cooking I made a pesto. The recipe called for a quantity of their own pesto recipe to be made but I make pesto so often, and I like my own pesto so much, that I whizzed up my own. Half a cup was required for the burgers and more for the bread.   

This, as well as the other ingredients (one half a cup of sun-dried tomatoes chopped, 2 cups of cooked rice and half a cup of pesto, were placed in a food processor until mixed and broken down, though still somewhat chunky.

Rice flour was now added to make a good consistency for burgers. At this stage I found hands were the best implements for doing this. The mixture then went in the refrigerator to allow the flour time to meld well.

When it was time for cooking, the mixture was taken out and made into burgers. It made eight.

Buns were not used to accompany the burgers, but a baguette was sliced on an angle, given a light toasting and spread with pesto.

I enjoyed these burgers better than some others I have made from the book. The sun-dried tomatoes gave a pleasant tang as you bit into the burgers and the pesto highlighted the mushrooms well.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Broad Bean Burgers

From Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2010.

I didn’t expect to find a recipe for burgers in Plenty but there it was and as it came from Yotam Ottolenghi I guessed that it would be a good one—and I’m a fan of burgers.

There was a fair amount of separate little cooking jobs before the burgers could be put together.

Firstly the broad beans had to blanched, cooled and carefully removed of their skins—a reasonably long process but rather pleasing to do if you aren’t in a hurry.

Then some spice seeds (cumin, coriander and fennel) were dry roasted and ground in a mortar and pestle.

Spinach was wilted in a pan with some olive oil. It was then squeezed as dry as possible and chopped.

Potatoes were boiled until tender. They were drained and the broad beans were added to them with the ground seeds, some chopped green chilli, chopped garlic, turmeric, some olive oil and seasoning. This was mashed with a potato masher. It was only mashed until it was generally broken up. The spinach was added, some chopped coriander and breadcrumbs. The final ingredient was an egg. It was then all mixed together.

The mixture was formed into patties and placed in the refrigerator for half an hour. 

The burgers were then fried.

I’m sure these were not intended to be lost in a bread roll. They were wonderfully flavoured and this flavour mix would be somewhat lost placed in bread. I decided to serve it on a plate with the standard three vegies. A bit dull I suppose but I wanted to just enjoy the burgers without any fuss surrounding them.

These are definitely ones I would go back to. I guess they would rate tops on my burger list.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔✔ 

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔