STEEMIT CULINARY CHALLENGE #11 : The "Carefree Cow" Veggie Burger - Original Recipe

It was down to a cow called Molly that I became vegetarian. I'll never forget the poignant footage of this cow making a mad dash for her life through the streets of New York, chased by multitudes of cops, after her courageous escape from the slaughterhouse. Absolutely terrified so she was, but thanks to all the publicity Molly was granted clemency, and taken to an animal shelter on an organic farm.  You should have seen how the other cows there greeted her, running up to her and mooing... it was really delightful.  That was the awakening moment for me – wholly realsing that these animals want to live.  And that I don't need to eat them.  
  

So why is this called The "Carefree Cow" Burger?  Because dear old Molly's still chewing her cud, and gets to be a cow instead of beef.  I definitely prefer a happy cow to a Happy Meal. 

You may also be wondering why my burger bun is green?  Well, since this week's 'Cheeseless Burger' theme encourages vegetarianism, I thought why not colour the buns with wheatgrass, in a show of solidarity with our fellow grass-eating friends :-)  

Many of you will have seen my previous Veggie Burger recipe, in which I used a mixture of various beans, as I find beans give a great 'meaty' texture.  A satisfying texture is often what many vegetarian products lack.  In this recipe I've used chickpeas and green mung beans, as I love the light and nutty taste of both, and they compliment each other very well.  I've also used kamut grain (khorasan wheat) which I ground into flour instead of using wholewheat flour, as kamut also has a nutty flavour and so works well with my choice of beans.  These nutty-tasting ingredients combined with the light sweetness of butternut squash, along with the crunchy golden-crumb coating, makes for sumptuous burgers, both in flavour and texture.  

When cooking I always prepare in bulk wherever possible, so I can freeze some for future meals, and also save on gas & electric.  Bread is pretty quick to prepare so I've just made enough for 2 here (one for me, one for hubby).  But the burger mixture makes enough for 6-8 large 'quarterpounder' sized burgers, so if you want to prepare less, just divide the quantities accordingly.  I also recommend using as many organic ingredients as possible, to avoid harmful artificial ingredients and chemical residues.  

What you will need:
 

For the burger buns (makes 2 large):
  

175g strong wholemeal bread flour  

15g butter  

1 tsp salt  

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast  

1 tblsp wheatgrass powder  

300ml warm water

Egg + golden linseed to top

 

For the burgers (makes 6-8 large):
  

1.5 cups cooked-from-dried chickpeas + 1.5 cups cooked-from-dried green mung beans  

1/2 butternut squash  

2 red onions  

6 cloves garlic  

1 tsp salt  

2 tsp black pepper  

1 tblsp parsley  

1 tblsp thyme  

1 tblsp oregano  

1 tblsp turmeric  

1 tsp paprika  

1 tsp chilli flakes  

1 large free-range egg  

100g kamut grain 

100g breadcrumbs

Method:

In a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips.

Stir in the salt, yeast and wheatgrass powder.

Add the water and mix in with your hand.  Knead for 10 minutes to form a smooth dough.  Add a little extra flour if the dough becomes too sticky.

Divide the dough into quarters and shape into balls.  Roll out each ball using a rolling pin to roughly the size of a side-plate (the dough will shrink when rising).  Place onto baking trays lightly dusted with wheatgrass powder (instead of flour, as we want to keep the dough green), and leave in  a warm place to rise for at least 30 minutes.

You see the dough has risen and also shrunk quite a bit, but still nice and big to home our big burgers.  They won't rise much more than this when baking, which is my preference as I find large dome-shaped buns annoying to bite!  These are like half buns, half flat-breads.  If you want fuller buns don't roll them as flat as I did, and they will rise up nice and plump.

Brush two of the four dough-rounds with egg and sprinkle with golden linseeds, or seeds of your preference.  These of course will be the top halves of the burgers, so no need to do the bottom halves.  Pop them into a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes until firm.

In a large bowl, half-mash the chickpeas and green mung beans.  For how to cook beans from dried please see my previous post here.  I like to prepare beans in bulk and freeze them in little portion-sized jars, so they are easy to defrost overnight for the next day, as I use beans A LOT in vegetarian cooking.

Peel the onions and garlic.  Roughly chop the onion and mince in a food processor or manual veg chopper, along with the garlic.

Peel the butternut squash and chop into manageable chunks to grate.

Add the veg to the bowl, along with the salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, parsley, turmeric, paprika and chilli flakes, and mix well.

To prepare the kamut grain we need to grind it into a fine flour.  Some of you I know already have flour mills.  I don't, but what I do have works just as well - a coffee-grinder attachment for my blender.  (This is a great little gadget as you can grind nuts easily too).  Simply put the kamut into the grinder cup, and turn onto full power for about 30 seconds until it is finely ground.  Alternatively, if you don't have either kamut or a grinder/mill, you can use a different kind of flour or even ground nuts here.  

Add the ground kamut plus an egg to the bowl (for binding) and mix thoroughly.  I use my hand for this, squelching it through my fingers... Feels nice and getting messy is always fun!  The mixture should be pretty 'wet' and sticky.

Prepare the breadcrumbs using a manual veg chopper, a food processor or even a cheese grater.  The best breadcrumbs come from good quality bread (not that awful stretchy sliced processed bread), so I like my Wholewheat Irish Soda Bread for this as it really does make great crumb for coating things with.  Pour the crumbs onto a plate ready to coat the burgers.

Get a large handful of the burger mixture, about the size of a 'quarterpounder' and drop into the breadcrumbs.  Get your hand underneath it and quickly flip it over to coat the other side too.  They're pretty fragile at this stage, but firm up lovely when baked.

Place onto baking trays, and pop into a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes until golden-brown and crunchy.

Slice up some veg to go inside the burger, such as onion and courgette.

Put the cooked burgers into the buns and leave the rest to cool... You can wrap them in greaseproof paper and freeze to eat another day (cook from frozen in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes).

Serve with homemade fries and a nice glass of fresh milk/milkshake!  

As usual, much appreciation to @englishtchrivy for hosting this challenge and giving us all a good reason to get creative!

Many thanks also to this week's judge @felixxx, and sponsors @smooth, @sirwinchester and @knozaki2015, and to everyone else involved in this challenge.

For more healthy vegetarian, sugar-free, additive-free recipes for meals and snacks, please follow me!  Thank you!

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