Jamaican Jerk Burger

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

I have been looking for ages for somewhere to purchase seitan. Finally I have found somewhere, The Vegetarian Butcher. I immediately came home with a packet to try out, as well as a packet of vegetarian sausages.

Naturally, when I browse through vegetarian cookery books I always find mention of seitan but when I have the product I don’t remember where I saw it mentioned. But then I found this burger recipe.

Firstly the Jamaican jerk sauce had to be made. It was easy, only a matter of putting all the ingredients in the blender and processing them until they became a type of paste. While I used the same ingredients (spring onions, ground allspice, pineapple juice, garlic cloves, chillies, dried thyme, ground cinnamon and nutmeg, salt and black pepper) I did not follow the measurements given. I just approximated them roughly, tasting as I went to get a hot spicy mix that I was happy with. I tipped it all into a bowl.

The burgers were then made. I chopped half a red onion and placed it in the blender with the seitan, about 300g. These were processed until they broke up and became crumb like. They were tipped into the bowl with the jerk sauce and mixed together. I tried to form this mix into burger shapes but they did not hold together very well. I thought that perhaps the pieces needed to be processed more to become a little finer. So I now processed the whole mixture in the blender. They held together a little better though not perfectly.

The oven was now heated to 180ºC. The mixture was formed into burger shapes and placed on a tray covered with baking paper. A pineapple ring was placed on top of each burger. They then went into the oven for 45 minutes. Since the oven was on I roasted some potatoes and carrots to have with the burgers rather than eat them in buns.

I also made a pineapple-orange-pomegranate relish to have with the burgers.

The burgers turned out to be very spicy, perhaps a little too much so when eaten by themselves, but when combined with some of the relish the spiciness was modified a little and they were chewy and tasty. The sweetness of the pineapple and the relish worked nicely with the hot chilli.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔