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Let’s be honest: there is nothing better than eating a good meal on a summer night in your own garden. Or, well, outside in general really. Since we have finally managed to clean up our garden we love to enjoy it as often as wel can (and try to keep up with those horrible weed! How can they grow so fast??) and so we love to eat outside but also cook outside. Of course we all know a barbecue and I seriously love grilling on the barbecue (or more accurately have Tom grill on the barbecue) but since recently we own our very own Plancha. What is a plancha you might ask and what is the advantage above a regular barbecue?

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First and foremost; it is a personal preference, but I really like this device. You see, you can not only grill stuff on it, but you can virtually cook anything on it (well, ok almost anything) that you would also do on your regular stove. Now take this chickpea burger for instance; delicious on a crispy sandwich with lettuce (from our own garden!), homemade red onion chutney (recipe will follow soon) and ok, a bit of bacon on top (which is not very vegetarian but anything tastes better with bacon right? And because it is so easily left off, I am tagging it as vegetarian too. Just so you know) The downside of burgers such as this one or the delicious goatcheese couscous burger I made earlier is that they fall apart more readily as a meatburger. So you need to be careful when baking it and on a BBQ it would fall to pieces straight away. On top of that it is easier to control the heat on the plancha, plus you have two different cooking area’s making it easier to bake something on one side and have something else at a different heat on the other side. In our case a burger on one side and the bacon on the other side. Or you could do fish on one side and meat on the other. You can make roasted veggies, you can bake fresh tortilla’s or even just bake an egg.

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So coming back to this delicious burger; it’s a good vegetarian burger but I do recommend you eat it with a fresh yoghurt sauce with for instance some mint. Or serve it with my delicious raita I made earlier. Because the chickpea is a bit dryer in texture it can do with a bit of that.

Even Tom (meatlover pur sang) thought it was ok.. And for a vegetarian burger that is quite a compliment.

Chickpea burger

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Serve these burgers with some red onion chutney, lettuce and a fresh yogurt sauce

5 -6

Ingredients

  • 550 gr chickpeas rinsed and drained
  • bunch of coriander
  • 4 tbsp of tahini
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 lemon zest and juice
  • 1 egg
  • 1 red chili
  • 2 sundried tomatoes
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 2 tbsp of oatmeal
  • few tablespoons of panko
  •  

  • Add the chickpeas, lemon, cumin, paprika, chili, coriander, egg, pepper, salt, sundried tomatoes and tahini in a foodprocessor and blend together until smooth. Add some oatmeal in and mix this with a spoon. This should bind them a bit better
  • Put the panko on a plate and roll chickpea burgers with your hands. They'll be soft and sticky so handle them carefully. Put the finished burgers on a plate, cover and put in the fridge to firm up a bit.
  • Bake them on a medium low heat for about four minutes on each side.

Disclaimer

The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.

Did you make this recipe?Mention @insimoneskitchen_ or tag #insimoneskitchen!

Disclaimer: I received the Plancha from Very Cook for a review, but all opinions expressed are – as usual – my own and based on my own experience with the plancha. 

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Simone van den Berg

Food blogger from the Netherlands. Loves good food. Likes to create healthy and easy recipes for daily use, but also loves the occasional sweet dish. Lives in the Netherlands with her two cats; Humphrey and Buffy. Profession: Food photographer, food blogger, recipe developer and nutritionist