Red Bean Veggie Burgers

This is a recipe I came up with last July 4th in Paris.

1 can red beans, drained (but keep the liquid)
Approx 1/2 – 1 Cup bread crumbs (about 1/3 of 4 day old baguette)
1 onion, diced
1- 4 Garlic cloves, cut up way tiny
1 small hot pepper, minced
approx 1T cumin
Salt and Pepper
Worchestershershirestershire sauce
Oil
Flour

I wanted to add egg, but they were 86ed and it turns out weren’t necessary anyway.

Take half the beans and pulse them shortly in the processor to make some chunks — don’t puree. The other half can be chopped up quite nicely with the garlic, onion and chili, cumin, adding just a tad of the bean can liquid to help things along.

Those, along with the breadcrumbs mix very quickly with a spoon in a large bowl, adding the salt and pepper, a little splash of Worchestershire and maybe a tad of olive oil. Just a little sprinkling of flour helped make it stick together a bit more.

This mixture makes about 4 or 5 patties, which you can let chill for a few minutes while getting a few other things ready.

We had a few red potatoes that looked pretty pitiful, so I made fries out of them. Hamburger buns are more readily available in Paris than, say, Dresden, but they are not very good. I used a pack of four small mini chiabata rolls, the prebaked kind. Liberally sprinkling them with milk before baking them makes them not quite as tough.  If you have time, the best buns you’ll ever have are homemade ones: use a regular bread recipe and half – half bread flour and whole wheat flour.

The patties fry on each side for maybe 6 minutes, but handle them carefully as they are somewhat fragile.  Or brush with olive oil before grilling.

We didn’t have much in the way of standard condiments, but this turned out to be a good thing. After all, no matter the recipe, veggie burgers will never be the same as real meat, so why not take it in another direction? We had them on the toasted ciabata rolls with strong mustard, sliced cornichons (there were only 3 left) and lamb’s lettuce (Mache, Feldsalat)

Pictures and More Pictures

Terry’s a composer, Janne’s a novelist.  And when the met, it was murder.

Last weekend, Julie, Terry and I celebrated the 4th at a burger joint. Why not? It was great, and Julie, a vegetarian, really liked her veggie burger. She liked it so much she wanted to have another one the very next day. So, I looked ’round the pantry and here’s the recipe I came up with. (more…)

Those birds are getting big. They appear fully feathered, and resemble the parents in two aspects, the first being a little bit of yellow fluff is visible yet and the second that they won’t fly away.

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Chinese New Year