black bean burgers - a delicious recipe & a reminiscence

[cimorene]

I've been meaning to try making black bean veggie burgers ever since I had some really delicious ones at my favorite uncle's favorite microbrewery in Lawrence, Kansas*. This recipe might actually have been the first result on All Recipes, I'm not positive. And it was even more delicious than anticipated! They contain an egg, though if you follow the link above there's a vegan alternative in the top of the comments.

Tweaked slightly for metric measures and to make sure they weren't too spicy for my wife's delicate Scandinavian palate,

Ingredients:
~5 dl black beans, drained and rinsed (2 285-g packets of go green, which is our widely-available local brand here in Turku)
½ bell pepper, diced
½ onion, cut into wedges
1 tsp garlic powder
1 egg
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp Thai chili sauce or hot sauce (OR: mix 1 tsp white vinegar with 3/4 tsp cayenne powder)
1,2 dl breadcrumbs

Directions:

1. Heat some vegetable oil in a skillet on the stove. I started at high and later reduced it to medium high.


2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.


3. In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic powder. Then stir into the mashed beans.


4. In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce.


5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together.


6. Form into patties - it will make four enormous burgers like you'd get at a steakhouse, but good luck finding buns that big in Finland. (Actually I think I've seen them somewhere. They definitely don't have them at the corner store, though.) (And also that's way bigger than I, at least, can eat at one sitting, so.) Cook somewhere from 5-10 minutes per side, depending how thick the patties are, but then, there's no salmonella in Finland, so it doesn't technically matter if they're not cooked all the way through.

(Follow the link to the original recipe for instructions for grilling or baking in the oven.)

See, I stopped eating meat in larger than miniscule amounts about 8 years ago because my sad, sensitive digestive system just doesn't like it. I decided then that I was going to cut things out of my diet that reliably upset my stomach, and meat dishes - which tragically included both cheeseburgers and bacon - always did.

It only took a couple of months before they stopped even smelling good - I distinctly remember being stationed at the isolated cash register by the deli end of that Texas supermarket one Sunday, and being nauseated the entire time because they were cooking bacon nearby.

Cheeseburgers don't smell good anymore either, but it doesn't stop me from missing them. I still remember how delicious they smelled and tasted when I did eat meat, and sometimes I dream about them or otherwise get some wacky craving and it's pretty sad that even if I wanted to break my diet and then spend twelve hours or whatever feeling sick and miserable, they wouldn't even taste good now.

These burgers, as delicious as they are, don't actually taste like cheeseburgers at all. Beans definitely have that meaty flavor to them - what's the Japanese word for that? It totally starts with a u and food blogs use it and stuff umami, thank you, flamebyrd - but it's more meat-family than meat-like-it-would-fool-you. But the combination of everything is still delicious and fits in with your typical hamburger (cheeseburger) toppings just as well as beef does, or possibly better from my POV. Even more amazing, it's complexly seasoned and flavorful and kinda spicy without even being too spicy for Wax! Even more success.


*Okay, so that was the week we got married, 10/09, almost three years ago, but whatever, I'm not the world's most adventurous chef.

Comments

[flamebyrd]

Umami!

Bookmarking this recipe - I don't usually make my own burgers (because I eat them out a lot - most restaurants have a veggie burger) but the pre-packaged ones are so awful I am willing to experiment.

[james]

I found, back when I was a vegan, that when I craved bacon that making something with soy sauce did the trick. A veggie stiy fry with oil and salt and slimy things like onions and various mushrooms satisfied the craving for bacon cheeseburgers.

[cimorene]

Yeah, soy is even more umami-ish than most beans I think. Cravings are funny, though - sometimes a substitution works just fine, but sometimes some little thing ruins it like the texture being wrong or something. Like, as much as I love soy-sauce-based stir fries and noodles, they wouldn't quite fit my cheeseburger craving because they lack the element that cheese brings to it (or at least they do when I make them?). A veggie burger with cheese is ok for that though.

[calico]

Mmmmmmm. Thank you! Bookmarking. :)