Chick peas & Kidney bean Burger, with Indian flavours

As with all dinners I cook, there is a story with this one too. And this one is similar to all the other stories. She wants to eat something different for dinner. He doesn’t relish any taste other than Indian, unless its a blue moon. She thinks hard and proposes Burgers. He makes a face. She decides to hold fast to her plan, but decides to spruce up the masalas in the burger. There… that’s tonight’s dinner story!

I got inspired by the mushroom and chickpea burger recipe posted in this month’s GoodFood, but since I am not on friendly terms with mushrooms, I decided to take the idea and work around it in my style, and make it taste like an Indian burger. The last bit is so that the husband doesn’t go starve himself tonight!



Actually, I have a confession to make – the freshly washed mint gave out such an awesome aroma throughout the house that I decided I HAD to eat it. So I built the recipe around it. The idea was to add lots of onions and garlic to the Tikka mixture, and garnish it with a lots of mint and coriander. And use the mint even in the yogurt mixture that is a replacement for mayo in this burger.

I had a lot of salad greens that I bought from my trip to Nature’s Basket which I decided to use to make the bed for the Tikka on the buns. You can onions and plum tomatoes also to add to the veggie quotient. I noticed that this a very protein-rich dinner, so yeah, its even healthy!

Ingredients [Makes 3 Tikkas]
Chick peas - 1/4 C
White kidney beans - 1/4 C
Salt - To taste
Onions - 2, medium sized, finely chopped
Garlic - 8-10 cloves, finely chopped
Mint leaves - a handful
Coriander leaves - a handful
Lemon juice - Juice of one lemon
Green chilli - 1 , finely chopped
Olive oil - 1 Tsp
Bread crumbs - If required, to bind the burger tikka
Lettuce leaves - a couple
Iceberg lettuce - a couple of leaves
Cherry tomatoes - 5-6, sliced half , lengthwise
Thick homemade yogurt - a Cup, beaten smooth
Salt - To taste
Cumin powder - 1 Tbsp
Sumak - 1 Tsp [optional]
Burger buns – 2 [I bought the wheat burger buns from Godrej Nature’s Basket]
Instructions
Add required amount of salt and boil the chick peas and kidney beans together in a pressure cooker.
Let this cool and mash the beans together, till they are mixed but still retain the coarse texture.
Heat the oil in a pan and sauté half the quantity of the onions and garlic in this.
Add the peas+beans mixture to this and mix, so that any excess amount of water will dry up, and the onions and garlic get mixed in the peas+beans mixture well.
Keep aside and let it cool.
Mix the lemon juice and the remaining onion and garlic pieces.
This should now be a thick lump, and making tikka balls out of this should be easy. If it is still not possible, dry this up by adding the bread crumbs to bind this mixture.
Take a fist-sized lump of the peas+beans mixture and flatten it out to prepare the Tikka.
Heat up the oven in the grill mode.
Brush a little oil on the Tikkas and grill them for about 5 min till the surface is slightly golden coloured.
Remove from the oven, and brush some more oil on the other side and grill for another couple of minutes.
Alternatively, you can deep-fry the tikkas for a better taste and crunch.
Slice the burger bun , and grill or toast this on a pan till the inner surface is toasted.
Prepare the yogurt mixture by mixing the yogurt with cumin powder and salt and Sumak if using.
To arrange the burger, plan the lettuce leaves on the bun, place the Tikka and decorate these with the tomatoes.
Cover the Tikka with another lettuce leaf.
Pour a spoonful of the yogurt mixture on this.
Garnish with a couple of mint and coriander leaves.
Cover the burger with the other half of the bun.
Serve immediately.


The burgers were yummy, with a certain earthy flavour given by the Tikka, the mint and yogurt added to the tangy taste, and the veggies brought in the crunch. In all, it was a wholesome dinner for us.