Portobello Pecan Burger with Pumpkin Wedges – Original Recipe from Peace and Parsnips

Portobello Pecan Burger (Original recipe from Peace and Parsnips)

This is no ordinary veggie burger, this a proper whopper!  Perfect for every summer BBQ and a vegan burger for all (even rampant carnivores!)

A beast of a burger taken from ‘Peace and Parsnips’ our new vegan cookbook which is storming a technicolour, vibrant veggie, food trail around the UK at the moment.  Jane and I are super chuffed with its success and so happy that people are enjoying the food and positive vibe of the book.  We’ve had such a great response on The Beach House Kitchen, as well as Twitter and Facebook.

In fact, Jane and I are really getting out and about this summer and have plenty of book signings, cooking demo’s, supper clubs and festival appearances lined up.  2015 is going to be a veggie riot!  The best way to keep up with all of this is on Twitter of course, but we’ll try and keep the BHK up to date and ever crammed with gorgeous vegan deliciousness.

There are a few recipes floating around the internet from Peace and Parsnips and we thought we’d share one of our fav’s with our beloved Beach Houser’s.  Thanks to the good folk at the Happy Foodie for posting this originally.  They also voted Peace and Parsnips in their ‘Top 5 Cookbook Debuts of 2015’ and the Beetroot Fritters in their ‘Top 5 Vegetarian Dishes of 2015’.  I love these guys!!!!

If you haven’t quite got around to getting a copy of the book, we’ll be running a competition very soon, giving away a free copy.  Watch this space.

So here we go, the

The Bits – Makes 6–8 mammoth burgers

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 350g Portobello mushrooms, cut into cubes
• 1 aubergine, chopped into 2cm pieces
• a large pinch of sea salt and black pepper
• 3 tbsp fresh oregano leaves or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 celery stalks, finely diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 20g dried seaweed, cut into very fine ribbons
• 175g flageolet beans, soaked overnight, then cooked with ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and cooled, or 1½ x 400g tins
• 120g toasted pecans
• 100g red or brown rice, cooked and cooled
• 2 heaped tbsp brown miso
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g fine wholewheat breadcrumbs (you can also use gluten free breadcrumbs)
• For the Pumpkin wedges –
• 750g pumpkin, scrubbed, seeded and cut into 5cm wedges
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• a large pinch of sea salt
• To serve –
• 8 seeded wholewheat rolls, halved (for gluen-free aternative, use your favourite GF bread)
• 1 big handful sun-blushed tomatoes
• buttery lettuce leaves (something like oak-leaf)

Do It

To make the pumpkin wedges, preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Put the pumpkin on a baking tray, toss with the oil and salt, and roast for 30 minutes, turning over once. The pumpkin should be tender and nicely coloured.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large, heavy frying pan on a medium-low heat and add the mushrooms and aubergines. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the salt and pepper. Cook for a further 5 minutes, until the aubergine is soft. Stir in the oregano leaves and set aside in a bowl.

In the same pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil on a medium-high heat and cook the onion and celery for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and seaweed and cook for another 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and combine with the aubergines and mushrooms.

In a food processor, combine half the beans, pecans, aubergine mix and rice with the miso, sifting in the bicarbonate of soda. Blitz to a thick paste. Add the breadcrumbs and the rest of the beans, rice and aubergine mix, along with the rest of the pecans. Pulse until a chunky mix forms, coarse in texture but finely chopped. Check the seasoning – the miso is quite salty. Transfer the mix to a bowl, combining it all well with your hands. Form the mix into 6–8 fat burgers. Put them into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.

Pop an ovenproof frying pan on a medium-high heat and lightly oil it. Cook each burger for 5 minutes per side, until beautifully light brown. If they lose shape and are unruly in the pan, press them down using the back of a spatula. Veggie burgers are sensitive and need to be handled with soft hands (and spatulas).

Put all the burgers into a warm oven, 150°C/gas mark 2, for 10 minutes to finish cooking. Cut your bread rolls in half and put them into the warm oven for 5 minutes.

Serve

On the base of each warm roll, scatter sun-blushed tomatoes (with a little of their oil) and top with a lettuce leaf, the burger and a good topping of macadamia tarragon aioli (recipe in the book). With the warm pumpkin wedges.

Foodie Fact

Pecans are a real treat for us.  We don’t use them all the time but when we do, we make them count!  Nuts are little nutritional powerhouses, packed with all kinds of anti-oxidants and friendly fats.  A handful a day, keeps the grim reaper at bay!  In fact, I write a whole section about NUTS in Peace and Parsnips called ‘Nuts about Nuts’!

Pecans are especially nutritious, loads of good mono-unsaturated fats and very high in Vitamin E and some important vitamin B’s.  They also happen to be loaded with all sorts of minerals.