Blogging Bittman's Beguiling Bean Burger

On an ideological level I have some issues with the concept of the veggie burger. It seems to beg the question that vegetarian food is a second-rate imitatation of the "real" food. Commercial veggie burgers are too often a grim caricature of a real burger or a Frankenstein's Monster of various hippie nuts and seeds (credit where credit's due, Webers has excellent veggie burgers). Still, there's something to be said for the burger paradigm and luckily, Mark Bittman has an excellent section of his book on how to make good veggie burgers. Here's my version:

Black Bean Burger on Bagel

2 cups black beans

1 medium onion, quartered

1/4 cup pearl barley, cooked in 3/4 cups water until the water is absorbed

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon chili powder

Salt and pepper

1 egg

Jot of soy sauce
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until chunky. As mentioned before, I do not have a food processor– so I used a blender. This was not as successful as I could have hoped and I had to add a little water to get it to work. As a result the mixture was a little wetter then I would've hoped (but not too much so).

Let rest for a few minutes and shape into patties with wet hands. Put oil in a skillet and turn to medium. Wait a minute, then add the patties. Cook until one side is browned, about 5 minutes. Then turn over and cook until firm and browned.

I served it with lettuce from my garden, sour cream whose origin I will mention in an upcoming post and montreal bagels a friend very kindly gave me.

Serves 4