VEGETARIAN BEETROOT BURGERS AND CRISPY ROAST POTATOES
I am back from a lovely 10 days in Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, where I ate lots of delicious food and drank delicious Italian wine. However after 10 days of restaurant food I was really looking forward to cooking again and having home cooked meals. So for dinner last night I made Beetroot Burgers and my husband made his fabulous roast potatoes to go with them. I am not supposed to eat wheat (very hard not to do that in Italy!!!) so my burger was without a bun (back to trying to be wheat free) but the rest of the family actually had theirs as a burger in a burger bun (but I forgot to take a photo of that!).
Firstly I needed some breadcrumbs so I made some bread using the McCambridges Gluten Free Bread Kit, so I could then make some breadcrumbs out of it. I have never used this before, but a friend recommended it and it is actually very nice. The package says to mix it in the plastic bag provided in the box, but I found once it was cooked there were little pockets of flour which had not been mixed properly so next time I will just put it in a bowl and thoroughly mix it before putting it in the provided tin. 
Now for the Burger recipe!
- 350g grated raw Beetroot. ((I used the big grater attachment on my food processor)
- 1 bunch Spring Onions finely sliced
- 100g Cratloe Hills Gold Mature Cheese grated (Vegetarian rennet used therefore Vegetarian Cheese)
- 150g Feta Cheese crumbled (M&S Feta is vegetarian)
- 140g Walnuts, toasted in a hot pan until just brown
- bunch finely chopped fresh Mint
- 150g Breadcrumbs
- 1 Chia Egg (I dessertspoon chia seeds with four dessertspoons of water left for at least 20 minutes – stir a couple of times during this 20 minutes so it does not form lumps)
- Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper
Put some extra virgin olive oil into a pan and let it warm up gently, then add the beetroot and spring onions and cook for approximately 5 minutes, stirring frequently. You want the beetroot to be a bit soft, but not too much. You can leave this mixture to cool slightly whilst you grate the cheese etc.
Put all ingredients into a bowl except for the chia egg, and mix thoroughly. Add enough chia egg a little at a time to get the correct consistency. You want it to be the consistency of a normal burger mix, not too dry and not too wet. It is easier to add the chia egg, impossible to take it out!!! I used about half of mine.
Form into 6 burgers. You can either bake them in the oven, (but they do not really go brown) or you can pan fry them in a little bit of ghee to get colour on them (which does look more appetising). I actually put them in the oven on 180 degrees for 20 minutes whilst I was preparing the other things, and then briefly pan fried them at the end. If you are going to do this, then preheat your oven whilst preparing the burger mix and place a sheet of non stick baking paper on the baking dish.
I served them with finely sliced onion, sliced tomato, lettuce and some Roast Carrot Humous which I had made earlier in the day. For everyone else there were also toasted burger buns!!
(This is my version of the Happy Pear Beetroot Burgers!)
Recipe for Roast Potatoes and Roast Carrot Humous to follow!!!!
