Mushroom and Bean Burgers from scratch

This is the actual name of the burger: 'Shroom-Kidney-Horse-Sage Burgers with Pesto smeared Hand Made Buns. :)

Sounds corny, I know. Who would've thought you could have them all in one sentence!

I desperately wanted to eat a burger! Having never made one from scratch, I thought it was apt specially because BBC's Good Food Magazine was launching and they'd asked us to come up with something that we've never done.

I hate the burger breads you get in the stores. The bread we get here is thoroughly refined and seasoned with lots of dough conditioners, improvers and preservatives. Let me tell you, once you make whole wheat bread at home, you will cringe every time you eat so called 'whole wheat' bread outside.

It had to be a veggie burger and I absolutely did not want to put potatoes in! Such a misconception the Mc Ds of the world have created!

Here's what you need:

For the Bread:

500gm Whole Wheat Flour
2 tsp Instant Yeast
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Sugar
1/3rd cup oil
Warm water
Herbs of your choice (I used fresh Oregano and Thyme)
Sesame/ Flax Seeds (optional)

Mix all the dry ingredients.

Stir in the water and add till you get a nice workable dough. Add in the oil and knead for about 5 minutes.

Cover it with cling film and let it rest for about one and a half hours or till the dough is now almost double in size.

Preheat your oven now to about 180C

After that, punch the dough down and knead for another five minutes. Add in the herbs and make them into burger bun shapes but flatten the tops. Brush on some water and sprinkle sesame and flax seeds.

Let it rest for ten minutes and pop them in the oven for about 30 minutes till they are golden brown and sound hollow when you knock on them.

Notice the lack of sesame seeds? They all fell off because I brushed the top with oil instead of water! Nevertheless, a tasty burger bun.

For the Burger Patty:


1 cup horsegram (soaked for 4 hours and cooked)
1 cup Red Kidney BEan (soaked for 8 hours and cooked)
1/2 cup Soya chunks (soaked for an hour and bolied for ten minutes)
1 steamed carrot
(you can add other vegetables like steamed potatoes, peas, pumpkin, etc)


1 Onion diced
2 cloves of Garlic
1/2 a Red Pepper diced
15 Button Mushrooms diced
Fresh or dried Sage
Salt
Pepper
A Few sprinkles of Habanero Tobasco Sauce (Because i like it spicy)
A dash Soy Sauce
Oil or water for sauteeing

Saute the onion and garlic in oil or water. Add the Red Pepper, Habanero Tobasco, Soy Sauce and Sage. Add the mushrooms.

Mash the cooked beans with a potato masher. Cut up the soy chunks and carrot. Add them all in to the pan with the mushrooms and mix well. Take it off the flame and start making the patties.

Cook each side of the pattice on a flat pan or a grill till crispy and brown.

 The Assembly:

You need any or all of the below:

Pre-made Pesto (I use fresh Basil, cashew, salt, garlic and olive oil)
Jalapenos
Sliced Yellow and Green Peppers
Sliced Cucumbers
Sliced Tomatoes
Mustard
Ketchup

Assemble and enjoy!

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Korean Miso 'Fish Egg' Soup

This recipe started off as a usual stir fry and ended up with the title of a Korean Miso 'Fish Egg' Soup. The story will unfold itself eventually, I hope.

It started out with a 'what to make for dinner' thought. The family was eating out so since I had to cook only for myself, I thought why not put a few vegetables that cook real quick together. But the kitchen had other plans for me.

So I open the fridge pick out half of a Yellow Zucchini, half a pack of Mushrooms, some tofu, a Green Chilli, few florets of Cauliflower and some pieces of Yam. I steamed the cauliflower and yam, cut the rest of the vegetables and proceeded to make my usual stir fry dinner. Oil, green chilli, tofu, yam, cauliflower, soy sauce etc all in, stirring around. Suddenly I remember I have some miso (which I have been treating like it was made out of gold) bought from Auroville. Miso is a fermented soybean paste that adds a lot of flavour to soups, stews and is used in many Japanese recipes. Though it is common in almost all of South East Asian cuisine, Miso Soup is a popular Japanese appetizer. It has a sour-sweet taste and it is usually added to the dish after everything has cooked. (I am not sure where it is available in Mumbai but I will find out and update this post. Also it is totally optional to this recipe.)

So I remember that I can make my stir fry in to a miso soup and while I'm doing that I spot the 'fish eggs'. Of course they are not fish eggs, they don't smell like fish eggs, but they look slimy, gelatinous and look very much like fish eggs. More about that later.

I added water, salt and pepper to the vegetables, covered them so they could cook a bit, took it off the stove and added a teaspoon of miso. Let it all sit for a bit and served myself the soup and added a spoon of the 'fish eggs' on top. This is what it looked like...

So I thought to myself why not search if there is any such thing as a fish egg soup and there actually is a Korean fish egg soup I found online made with tofu, vegetables and fish eggs of course. It looks nothing like what I ate and I'm sure it tasted nothing like it either. My sister saw me clicking pictures of my dinner and with a lot of disgust on her face asked me what the hell I was planning to eat.

Okay, if you know your Indian dessert you probably know what my 'fish eggs' were. They were basil seeds or sabja seeds or sabza seeds, infamous for their addition to Falooda here in India. It is usually soaked till it becomes all gelatinous and then added to the dessert. It is also consumed because it is known to treat digestive problems and also bring down the pitta or heat in your body.

They have no taste, they look like little speckled eggs and have a rubbery texture. Except for the taste, colour and smell, the texture is very much like what people eat as the real fish eggs. They added nothing more than a novelty to my soup, which is what I look for in most of what I eat, even if I have eaten the very same thing gazillion times before.

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Sesame-Mustard Stir Fry Vegetables

This looks as good as it tastes!

You need:

2 tsp Sesame Oil (til oil)

1 Onion chopped in fine-long pieces

1 Green or Red Chilli

1/4 inch ginger juliennes (sliced long and thin)

1 Carrot Shredded or grated in a large holed grater

1/2 of a small Cabbage shredded or chopped fine and long

1/4 of a small Raw Papaya juliennes

1/2 Green/Red/Yellow Pepper (Capsicum) (optional)

A handful of Mushrooms chopped (optional)

100gms Tofu diced (optional)

2 tsp Soy Sauce

2 tsp Raw or Roasted Sesame Seeds (Til)

1 tsp freshly ground Mustard seeds (Rai)

Salt

Cooked Noodles or Rice (optional)

In a saucepan/wok heat 1 tsp sesame oil and add the tofu. Stir it around till the tofu is light brown, remove and keep it aside. If you are not going to use tofu, omit this step completely.

In the same saucepan/wok add 1 tsp sesame oil and add the onions, green or red chilli and ginger. Stir it around once in a while. When the onions turn translucent, add the other vegetables whatever your using. I always add the cabbage towards the end since it cooks real fast. Add the soy sauce, salt, sesame and ground mustard seeds. After about 4 minutes when everything starts sizzling, add the tofu and give it a quick stir. Take the pan off the stove and cover it and let it sit for about 3 minutes.

Serve it hot over noodles or rice or have it as is.

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