Vega burger with mushrooms and water chestnuts
Tofu
When I was younger (as in a lot younger) I ate vegetarian for a while. I was beginning twenties and decided to stop eating meat and fish. At that time vegetarian was still a bit of an odd thing. You didn’t have all the options you have today and to be honest I had zero knowledge of nutrition and so when I was told I ‘had’ to eat tofu to get my protein, that is what I did…
And I hated it. I still do to be honest: I cannot – for the live of me – figure out why you would eat tofu. I do not like the texture, I do not like the taste (is there a taste??) and I find there is no reason to use the stuff.
However, now that I am back on the vegetarian route, I kind of feel I need to give tofu a second chance. Not because I have to, but just because I feel that is only fair. It’s ages ago I tried it and so it seems the right thing to do..
In comes this burger. First of all: the burger itself is delicious. It’s slightly adapted from a Donna Hay recipe and my eye fell on it because it uses water chestnuts. And I happened to have a can of that in the cupboard. It was there for ages so about time I used it 🙂
Apart from the water chestnuts there is tofu and lots of mushrooms in here. The tofu you don’t really taste so to be honest I wonder why you would even go to the trouble of adding it but it probably has some sort of function.
In terms of trying out tofu again it was a failure. I know tofu is one of those ingredients that are very neutral and take on any flavor but in this case I have no way of knowing if any of the flavor is tofu related. So I need to find an alternative… 🙂 Second try out will follow soon.
In the meantime: go ahead an try this delicious burger! And if you do have a recipe I should try that incorporates tofu, please let me know!
Mushroom burger with tofu and water chestnuts
Ingredients
- 150 gr mushrooms
- 150 gr firm tofu drained
- 225 gr water chestnuts from a can, drained
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1 egg
- 2 cloves of garlic crushed
- seasalt and black pepper
- 130 gr buckwheat flakes
- 2 tbsp oliveoil
- 4 buns
- 1 cucumber to make ribbons for serving
- mayonaise or a sauce to your liking
Instructions
- Add the mushrooms in the bowl of the foodprocessor and pulse until finely ground. Place into a large bowl. Add tofy and the waterchestnuts to the processor and ground them finely.
- Add the tofu mixture, tahini, egg, garlic, salt, pepper and 2/3 of the buck wheat flakes to the mushrooms and mix with your hands until it forms a coherent mixture. Shape into 4 buns
- Place the remaining buckwheat flakes on a flat plate and press the burgers carefully in it until covered on all sides. Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat. Bake each burger for about 3-4 minutes each side or until golden.
- Serve the burgers with cucumber ribbons and a spicy mayonaise or sauce of your liking.
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.
Interesting combination. Those burgers must taste great.
Cheers,
Rosa
They do! Thanks Rosa!
I am with you on tofu, but I am open to revisiting it. Burger looks delicious.
Thanks Cathy. Yes I’m still in the process of deciding what I think about it!