It’s vegan. Surprised? Back when my older daughter Sam was a vegetarian, I tried to learn vegetarian cooking. Lots of experiments with unfamiliar ingredients. Even more experiments combining unfamiliar ingredients with familiar ones. Some dishes turned out well, others were ghastly failures but a few were quite spectacular. These mushroom burgers are among the best I ever came up with.
Why mushrooms?
Why not just form patties with chopped vegetables? Well, these burgers have bell pepper, carrot, onion and garlic too. But we have a thing for mushroom burgers. When the girls were younger, we often drove to the hilly city of Tagaytay on weekends. On those drives, we rarely missed enjoying a meal at a place called Mushroomburger where patties are made with 50% beef and 50% mushrooms.
So, when Sam decided to go vegetarian, mushroom burgers were very much on my mind. Of course they weren’t going to be 50% beef. So, instead of beef, chopped vegetables were combined with the chopped mushrooms.
Chopping the mushrooms and vegetables
To chop the mushrooms and vegetables, you can use a manual chopper, a mini food processor or do everything by hand.
Chop the vegetables are finely or as coarsely as the mushrooms. Or, if you want contrast, chop the mushrooms coarsely and the vegetables finely. Mix them together and add panko. The breadcrumbs soak up the water content of the mushrooms and vegetables to prevent the patties from turning too soft.
Chickpea flour as binder
Now, the binder. With real burgers, the fat in the beef act as binder. Alternatively, egg is added. Because this is a vegan burger, obviously, animal fat and egg cannot be used as binder. Instead, chickpea flour and water are mixed into a paste and stirred into the mushroom and vegetable mixture.
You need oil to cook the burgers
Not much. But enough to coat the bottom of the frying pan. Coat. Generously. Not brush but coat. You need enough oil to make sure that the burgers will form a crust on the outside. If you have a large frying pan, you can cook the patties at the same time. Otherwise, cook them one by one.
You may want to drizzle another tablespoonful of oil into the pan after flipping so that the top will get enough oil to allow it to brown well too. Important: Do not flip until the underside is well-browned because without the browned and firm crust, the patties are really soft and if flipped too early they will break apart.
Mushroom burgers
Ingredients
- 1 cup oyster mushrooms chopped
- 2 tablespoons bell peppers chopped
- 2 tablespoons carrot chopped
- 2 tablespoons onion chopped
- 2 to 3 cloves garlic crushed
- â…“ cup panko (use less if using ordinary bread crumbs)
- 2 tablespoons chickpea flour
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- cooking oil for frying
Instructions
- Place the chopped mushrooms, bell peppers, carrot, onion, garlic and panko in a mixing bowl. Stir to combine.
- Mix the chickpea flour with two tablespoons of water to make a paste. Stir into the vegetables and mushrooms then season the mixture with salt and pepper.
- Divide the mixture into two portions. Form each portion into a patty. Keep the patties thin. You’ll get more crunch out of your burgers that way.
- Coat the bottom of the frying pan with vegetable cooking oil.
- Fry the patties over medium heat until nicely browned underneath. Then, flip carefully to brown the other side.
- Brush your bread with whatever spread you like. I used hummus with tahini.
- Lay some greens on the bread then position the patty. Cover with another piece of bread. Enjoy.
