Colombian burger recipe

Posted on September 23, 2011 by linda

Double Cheese Burger with Pink Sauce, Pineapple Sauce, Garlic Sauce, Potato Chips and a bunch of other stuff
We are really globe trotting now!  From China to Colombia, a very different vibe and appropriately different flavors.  Colombia is located on the North Western coast of South America and borders Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

My mental map of South America is terrible, I always pictured Colombia as being more inland, so now I have it placed pretty firmly in the correct location.  The Colombian government continues to struggle with violence from rebel groups (although apparently that’s getting better) and to combat the drug trafficking and the cultivation of illegal drugs.  The CIA World Factbook says that Colombia is the world’s leading cultivar of coca products, much of which is then sent into the US.  They also grow quite a bit of cannabis and opium poppy – nothing like diversification!  Fortunately the Colombians also have a richly diverse population and a love of food that will serve our purposes quite well.

This is one of those countries that has a strong burger tradition that we are going to explore.  Apparently it is not uncommon to go to a burger restaurant and have 30 or more topping choices.  Colombian’s like a messy burger with lots of sauces – thank goodness!  This is going to be fun, I promise!  There are also lots of burger and hotdog stands in the city and these messy wonders are popular street food – even most street vendors will have a dozen or more toppings to choose from.  By all accounts it’s important not to get picky on the toppings – just get everything on the burger and you’ll be happy (and very full).

The other interesting thing that they do with burgers is they have dipping sauces – these are the sauces that are just too liquid and would make your burger a soggy mess if you poured them right on.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of detail on what’s in the dipping sauces, so I made a classic garlic sauce that seemed to fit the tradition and it was perfect with the richness of the burger.  I can’t come close to describing how wonderful and messy this burger is – amazingly it transcends the ingredients.   The double patties are important to balance the burger and so that you can taste the meat at all – I still used only ¼ pound of meat for each burger because I wanted a really flat thin patty for these burgers.  I also highly recommend you use a leaner beef so that you don’t get a lot of shrinkage with cooking.

The sauces by themselves are pretty basic – pink sauce is essentially ketchup and mayonnaise with some additions to spice it up a bit – a couple of descriptions I found included brandy or some other booze in the pink sauce, so never one to miss a chance to use booze, I mixed in some Calvados.  Do I think it made a huge difference, no, but it did give a little tang that I liked.  The pineapple sauce gave me pause, after the extended pineapple debate we encountered with Australia, I wasn’t sure I was up for more pineapple.  Fortunately, most of the sources I found described a pineapple sauce rather than a big slice of pineapple – it added a really nice fruity undertone to the burger.  I used fresh pineapple because it’s in season and I was making carrot cake anyway, so I was able to use the whole thing and not waste anything.  I also made the sauce with canned pineapple chunks.  I expected a big difference in taste – the pineapple itself tastes quite a bit different, but, when you cook it down and add the sugar and lime there was almost no difference in the final flavor (although the fresh pineapple sauce was more yellow while the canned was paler).  So use whichever you prefer and it will be good either way.

The Aji sauce (I found this was spelled a number of ways, but this spelling seemed most common), is a classic condiment in Colombia with innumerable recipes.  Some include tomato, some are thick, some are watery – it’s the Colombian equivalent of piri piri or chimichurri – everyone uses it and every family has a secret recipe.  I made mine more paste-like for fear of drowning my poor burger.  It adds a nice herbaceous note that helps balance all the rich sauces.

I have a feeling some of you may comment on my cheese choice and to all of you I say, comment away!  I chose manchego cheese because, A) I like it, B) it’s got a nice tart flavor that I thought would hold up to all of the crazy flavors in this burger (I was right).  I know, it’s Mexican but I couldn’t find any Colombian cheeses or good descriptions of what Colombian cheeses taste like (I did find two references to American cheese being used, but I decided to ignore those because, well, yuck).

It is critical that you get a nice soft bun for this burger – the standard American hamburger bun that you get at the grocery store is perfect.  For those without access to American supermarkets, a brioche roll or other soft roll would work well.  I also chose to use a thicker wavy potato chip vs. the classic thin chip.  I wanted to make sure the chips stayed crispy and the thicker wavy chip worked well.  I was surprised how much crunch they added which kept the burger from feeling soggy and too wet.

This is a crave worthy burger, it’s messy, an amazingly tasty – it’s made me rethink my love for the Big Mac, this is a far more worthy burger, I hope you think so too.  Everyone in the family loved this – my father was relieved to have something a little less exotic for a change and my husband insisted on eating the photograph version of the burger the next day for lunch.  Bring lots of napkins and enjoy!

(by the way, you can make all of the sauces ahead of time and just cook the burgers last minute and assemble which makes this really easy to make for the family, the burgers cook fast too!)

Colombian Burger
1 pound ground beef (90% lean)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
4 ounces manchego cheese sliced
4 soft burger buns
salted butter
lettuce
Aji Sauce (recipe below)
Pineapple Sauce (recipe below)
1 large tomato sliced thin
1 onion sliced thin
Pink Sauce (recipe below)
Wavy Lays or other thick potato chip (pounded into coarse crumbs)
Garlic Sauce for dipping (recipe below)

Mix ground beef with salt, pepper and onion powder.  Separate into 8 equal portions.  Roll each portion into a ball and flatten into as thin a patty as you can (max ¼ inch).  In a large non-stick pan, fry the first 4 patties until cooked through.  Put them on a platter and cover with foil.  Cook the other four patties adding the cheese after you turn them and cover to melt the cheese.  These patties cook really quickly so while your cooking them, if you have a helper, have them butter and grill the buns and get all of the other ingredients lined up.

To assemble the burgers, I’m not sure order is critical, but here’s how I did it…

Bottom bun
Lettuce
Aji Sauce
Cheese-less patty
Pineapple Sauce
Tomato
Onion
Cheese-patty
Pink Sauce
Chips
Top bun

I also soaked the sliced onion in ice water for about ten minutes to take some of the sting out – this is up to you and your tastes.

Aji Sauce
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
4 jalapenos chopped
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
½ cup chopped green onions
¼ cup fresh cilantro chopped
¼ cup Italian parsley chopped
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a small food processor and pulse until everything is uniformly chopped.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Pineapple Sauce
¾ cup pineapple juice (either from fresh pineapple or from canned)
1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
½ Tablespoon sugar
4 Tablespoons cold water
2 Tablespoons cornstarch

in a small sauce pan, combine pineapple juice, lime juice and sugar, stir and heat through.  In a small bowl, combine the water and cornstarch and stir until there are no lumps.  Add the cornstarch mixture to the juice mixture slowly, whisking constantly.  Bring to a boil and continue cooking until thick (2-3 minutes).  Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.  Refrigerate until ready to use

Pink Sauce
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup ketchup
1 Tablespoon lime juice
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon Calvados
4 drops Tabasco sauce

Combine all ingredients in a glass bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.

Garlic Dipping Sauce
Juice of 1 lemon (about ½ cup)
8-10 cloves garlic minced
¼ cup olive oil

Whisk first two ingredients then slowly add the olive oil, whisking constantly.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

 

Colombian burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in beef burgers, south american recipes | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Chinese burger recipe

Posted on September 15, 2011 by linda

Pork burger with Black Bean Garlic Sauce, 5 spice, and Cantonese Vegetables
There are many countries that we’ve explored so far that have been difficult – most because there is so little information, so few recipes for inspiration, and limited food resources.  Well, now for something completely different we have arrived (alphabetically) at China.  With 1.3billion people, China has more residents than all of the countries that we’ve explored so far, combined!  It’s geographically huge (4th largest in the world), really old and really heavily populated (in fact they’re #1 in the world).  The problem with China is that there is too much information.

I usually start my research making sure I understand the geography and any big notes in the history and/or current events.  Geography is easy (except for the spelling);

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

China is located on the east coast of Asia, bordering Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and of course, the Pacific Ocean.  There is the issue of Taiwan and whether you consider that a separate country or not – which is one of the reasons why I’m using UN status as my country definition – it keeps me out of the politics.  I know, I’m a coward, but I’m just in this for the food.

My next step in the research is to search for information about the food – usually this starts with the simple step of searching “Chilean food or Chinese food”, you get the idea.  So, I did a Google search on “Chinese food” – try it yourself, it’s fascinating _ there were over 340million results!  For comparison, “Chilean food” yields a little over 14million results.  Narrow it down to “Chinese recipes” and you get 196million hits, “Chinese burger” gets you 49million…well, you get the idea.  There are 8 different distinct styles of Chinese cuisine and I’m pretty sure I could spend the next ten years studying and still feel like a novice in the complexity of the cuisine of China.

There’s the further challenge of the fact that so many people have eaten so much Chinese food that we all have a sense of what the food tastes like.  While with every other country we’ve explored, I’ve felt like I’ve been able to surprise myself and my family with new flavors – here I was just hoping not to make bad Chinese food!

I chose to tackle Cantonese style food as it is widely reported to be the most popular and of the 8 styles.  It is what I think of a classic Chinese food – a little sweet, not spicy, lots of shallots, mushrooms and green pepper – stir fry, and, of course rice.  All of these work great for a burger.  I chose pork for the meat, although chicken would also be good, then created a classic sauce, stir fried some veggies and put it all together over rice.  The final burger has a great earthy flavor with the tangy black bean garlic sauce balanced with a little sweetness and this works really well with the shallots and veggie mix.  Chinese five spice adds a little exotic flavor to the meat that gives the whole dish more interest and a more authentic feeling flavor.  We found the only challenge was that the big piece of meat seems out of place with Chinese food, so definitely make the full amount of sauce so that you can add extra to the burger and keep everything nice and moist.

Everyone in the family (even my dad) enjoyed the burger – Chinese food is a great crowd pleaser!  I served a nice pinot noir with this one and the slight spiciness and light fruit complimented the umami earthiness of the burger.

Chinese burger
1 pound ground pork
½ teaspoon Chinese five spice mixture
1 teaspoon peanut oil
2 teaspoons soy sauce
Fresh ground pepper
1½ cup white rice (cooked to package directions)
Grilled bok choy (recipe below)
Cantonese Vegetables (recipe below)
Black Bean Garlic Sauce (recipe below)
2 green onions chopped

Mix the meat and five spice until well combined, then form into four patties.  Pour ½ teaspoon of soy over each of the burgers and top with fresh ground pepper.  In a large non-stick pan, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering.   Place the patties in the hot pan and grind fresh pepper over the top.  Cook until browned (about 3-5 minutes) then turn and cook until done.

Cook the rice to the package directions.   Divide into four portions and scoop rice onto plates.  Top with grilled bok choy then the burger patty.  Scoop on a generous helping of the Cantonese Vegetables and spoon some extra sauce on the top and finish with a sprinkle of green onion.  Serve hot with extra sauce on the side.

Grilled bok choy
Four leaves of bok choy (stems trimmed off)
2 Tablespoons peanut oil

Heat oil until smoking then place the bok choy in the oil.  Cook for about one minute then turn and cook for another minute.  You want light browning in places, but you don’t want to burn the bok choy, so this goes really fast.  Place cooked pieces on paper towel until ready to use and blot to get any excess oil off.

Cantonese Vegetables
2 Tablespoons peanut oil
2 cups cremini mushrooms sliced (you can substitute button mushrooms)
¼ cup oyster mushrooms chopped (you can substitute any other mushroom you like)
½ green pepper sliced into thin strips and cut in half so the pieces are about 1” long
1 large shallot sliced thin (about ½ cup)
1 clove garlic sliced thin
2 green onions sliced thin (use both the white and dark green parts)

In a wok or large frying pan heat the oil until smoking.  Add the mushrooms and cook stirring constantly for about two minutes.  Add the peppers, shallots and garlic and cook until mushrooms are just soft and peppers are starting to soften stirring the whole time.  Add half of the Black Bean Garlic Sauce and just heat through quickly.  This is best when used right away, but you can save leftovers and eat them next day – the veggies will just lose a little bit of their firmness, but the flavor will still be great.

Black Bean Garlic Sauce
2 Tablespoons Kikkoman black bean sauce with garlic (there are lots of other brands you can use too, but every one has a different flavor – I tried three and I liked this one the best)
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons honey

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and whisk until combined.  Heat until just simmering.  Use half with the vegetables and half as extra for the table.

Chinese burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

BH&T China Burger

Posted in asian recipes, pork burgers | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Chilean burger recipe

Posted on September 9, 2011 by linda

Cheeseburger with avocado and Pebre sauce
I have to admit, I was excited to change it up and head to Chile for our next recipe.  Africa is difficult – the stories of the people are sad and the food is either very plain or quite exotic (sometimes both).  South America is more familiar territory and the flavors are some of my favorites.  Chile is a long thin country on the western coast of the continent.  It is bordered by Argentina, Bolivia and Peru.  Because of the long coastline, Chile has abundant seafood (Chilean sea bass is my personal favorite although we once had giant squid that had been caught off the coast of Chile and it was amazing).  Despite that, since beef is also widely eaten in Chile, and beef is my favorite protein for burgers, I decided to stick with beef (my father was so relieved).

Chilean food isn’t super spicy, rather it focuses on the readily available fresh produce and core spices like cumin and oregano.  Like Bolivians and Argentineans, Chileans have a condiment that they use on everything; it’s called pebre sauce.  And, like the other condiments we’ve tried, there are a million different recipes for pebre.  Some include tomatoes and basically end up being like salsa.  Almost all of the recipes I found include the core ingredients of cilantro, onions, garlic, peppers, oil, parsley and either lemon juice or vinegar.  So I stuck with the basics – you can add oregano, chives, hot pepper sauce, tomatoes…you get the idea.

I also have to admit that I was really excited to read that Chileans love bread, all kinds of bread – I was beginning to miss a nice traditional bun, so this was a good break.  We are also back to the land of cheese, oh glorious cheese!  Unfortunately Chilean cheese isn’t available in my neighborhood, so I had to find a substitute.  I read in a couple places that muenster is pretty close to Chilean gauda (one of the most common cheeses in Chile – not to be confused with gouda), so that seemed like a good stand in – it also melts really well which is great for burger making.

To top the whole thing off we, of course, enjoyed a nice Chilean wine.  I found a Concha Y Toro Casillero del Diablo Carménère.  This varietal is not really produced much anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the quantity produced by Chile, and it is delicious – a full bodied but very drinkable wine with a lot of complexity in the fruit flavors.

This burger will be pretty satisfying for those of you who enjoy Latin flavors – it has the taste of cumin and oregano balanced with the creamy cheese, fresh tomato and avocado and then topped with the slightly spicy pebre sauce – very satisfying.  I did add pepitas to the top, but consider those optional – my research indicated that pumpkin is very popular in Chile and this is my hat tip to that tradition.  I also tried roasted corn on the burger, and it was good, but not strictly necessary, so you can put that as optional too – it also makes the burger really messy, so I passed on using it in the photo.  One final note, I found a couple of references to the Chilean Hamburguesa as the burger that is eaten in Chile – but I couldn’t find any details on what Chileans eat on their hamburguesa.  As far as I can tell, it’s just Spanish for hamburger and Chileans eat the same thing so many people eat on their burgers – lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions.  If any of you have any greater insight, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Chilean burger
1 lb ground beef
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon paprika
4 slices of Muenster cheese
4 burger buns (or French bread rolls if you want to get fancy)
1 ripe avocado mashed
1 tomato sliced
Pebre sauce (recipe below)
Pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

In a large bowl, combine beef, cumin, salt, oregano and paprika.  Form four patties and grill to desired temperature, top with cheese about 2 minutes before burgers are done.  Spread ¼ of the mashed avocado on each of the four buns, place cooked patties on top of the avocado.  Top with sliced tomato, pebre and pepitas.

Pebre sauce
1 cup Italian parsley chopped
1 cup cilantro chopped
¾ cup onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic crushed
Juice of 1 lemon
½ cup scallion greens chopped
1 Tablespoon olive oil

 

Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until it forms a well blended chunky paste.  Refrigerate for a few hours before using so that the flavors will meld.

 

Chilean burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in beef burgers, south american recipes | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Chadian burger recipe

Posted on September 5, 2011 by linda

Burger with Vegetable Ragout and Spicy Zucchini on Millet Rounds

And now we arrive at Chad.  And again my childish sense of humor takes over.  I can’t say Chad without picturing some prep school kid wearing plaid pants and a pink Izod.  I don’t know how I got this association.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never known a person named Chad, nor do I know any prep school guys who would even consider wearing plaid pants, but that’s where my mind goes.  But really, this has nothing to do with anything and we should really focus on the country of Chad.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Chad is a country in central Africa – yes, another central African country.  It is landlocked and bordered by Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.  Like its neighbors, it’s a relatively poor country and most of the population makes its living subsistence farming and livestock raising.  But poverty isn’t the biggest challenge in Chad, the biggest challenge is civil unrest – polite phrasing for “people keep killing each other there.”  The CIA World Factbook lists the median age for the population as 16.8 years, for males it goes down to 15.6!  Chad has the 7thhighest death rate in the world.  Add to this an influx of refugees from Darfur and Central African Republic, then sprinkle in ethnic tension and human trafficking and you get a general sense of the issues facing the over 10.5 million people currently living in Chad.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

In terms of food, southern Chad has a great climate for growing things and they grow a variety of fruits and vegetables.  They also raise livestock in Chad, and, while the most commonly eaten meat is goat, they also raise cattle, so I chose to stick with beef for this burger – cause I like beef.  This recipe would work well with a veggie burger or with chicken.  To bring in the local flavors, I tried a variation on stewed vegetables and made it into a ketchup of sorts.  The trick here was to cook everything down and give time for the flavors to develop.  The result was a rich vegetable spread with very little heat but strong flavors of sweet carrots and onions with the tang of the kale leaves and exotic undertones of the red palm oil.  Chadians would probably use okra to thicken the sauce, but I just cooked it down and cooked out most of the liquid, so it didn’t need thickening.  Besides, I know that many of you really dislike okra – we’ll agree to disagree on that one.

The veggies were perfect but I needed a little more spice to add some zing.  Zucchini happens to grow well in Chad and it’s also in season here, so I marinated some zucchini in red pepper flakes and vinegar and WOW, nice pop of heat.  They are super spicy on their own, but when combined with the vegetable ragout, they work perfectly.  The more observant of you may be saying “now wait just one minute, I don’t see any zucchini in that photo,” and you would be correct.  I make my photo burger the day after we try the recipe (saves me from having to get one that looks perfect while I’m also trying to feed a hungry crew, and allows me to do my photos in the afternoon when the light is better, and also keeps me from wasting time photographing something that tastes bad), and I have a 5 year old and a 16 month old who are really distracting when you are trying to make visually perfect (or at least really nice) food.  So, I got distracted, forgot the zucchini and had already cleaned up all of my ingredients before I noticed.  I was hoping you would all forgive me and accept the photo as is, we don’t want to lose time going backward at this point.

The last element was the “bread”.  This was a bit of a challenge as we’ve done a lot of the starch options already, and I am hoping not to repeat myself.  Millet is the dominant grain in Chad and I found some recipes that made a kind of starchy bready like item using millet and wheat flour, so I adapted and created a cornbread like round using millet instead of corn meal.  I loved the way this turned out and I’m thinking I would rather use millet than corn meal any day.  I think the nutty flavor of millet is just much more interesting than the flavor you get from corn meal and the texture is very similar.

We topped it all off with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts and the result was a savory hearty burger that we all enjoyed.  (My dad would have preferred a plain burger, but he ate this one, which is, in my book, a good sign).  This burger doesn’t really have any direct comparison to dishes in Chad; it is back to more of the “inspired by” model.  Chadians enjoy a vegetable stew similar to the one I made, but it would be spicier and they would usually have peanut butter in the stew.  They make lots of things out of millet, but I didn’t see anything that looked or sounded like corn bread in my research.  One of the most important ingredients to the recipe is red palm oil – don’t forget, this stuff is very red and it stains anything it touches, so don’t wear white when you’re cooking this burger.  It is hard to find red palm oil in a regular grocery store – my local Whole Foods stopped carrying it – but there are several online retailers that sell it.

Chad Burger
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
4 Millet Round (recipe below)
Vegetable Ragout (recipe below)
Spicy Zucchini (recipe below)

Season ground beef with salt and pepper.  Divide into four portions and form patties.  Cook in cast iron skillet to desired temperature.  Place each patty on top of a Millet Round, then a slice of tomato, 2-3 slices Spicy Zucchini, spoon Vegetable Ragout on each then top chopped peanuts and scallions.

Millet Rounds
¾ cup millet
½ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon red palm oil
¾ teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons peanut oil

Grind millet in a spice grinder until the texture of cornmeal.  In a medium bowl, combine millet, flour, red palm oil and salt.  Heat peanut oil in a cast iron skillet until very hot.  Form the millet mixture into burger sized patties and place carefully in the hot skillet.  Flatten the patties as much as possible then cook until golden (about 2 minutes).  Flip them and cook until the other side is also golden (another 2 minutes).  Place on paper towel until ready to use.  They are good warm but can also be used at room temperature.

Vegetable Ragout
2 Tablespoons red palm oil
1 small eggplant chopped (about 2 cups)
1 cup onion chopped
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 carrots diced (about 1 cup)
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
½ cup zucchini diced
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 Tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups chopped kale
1 cup water

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium high heat until shimmering.  Add eggplant and stir, coating all of the eggplant in the oil.  Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 3-5 minutes until eggplant is starting to soften.  Add onions and cook for another 3-5 minutes.  Season with salt and add carrots, cook for 5 minutes stirring often.  Add cayenne and zucchini and cook for 5 minutes.

Add pepper and tomato paste and stir until combined.  Add kale and water and cover for about 2 minutes until kale has started to wilt.

Stir all of the ingredients together then cover, turn heat down to low and simmer for 1 hour.  Adjust seasoning as desired.  Let mixture cool slightly then put in a food processor and pulse until you get a relatively smooth paste.  This sauce is best used when warm.

Spicy Zucchini
½ cup thinly sliced zucchini
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

In a small glass bowl, combine all ingredients.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using.  Use these cold from the refrigerator.  Note:  these zucchini sat overnight and got a bit of a pink color, if you use them same day, they shouldn’t get so pink.  They still taste good pink, just even more spicy and tart.

Chadian burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in african recipes, beef burgers | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Central African Republic burger recipe

Posted on August 25, 2011 by linda

Veggie Burger with Cassava Mash and Spicy Peanut Sauce
We are making progress on our trek across Africa, now moving toward the center, hence Central African Republic is our next stop.  Not the most original name, but who are we to judge, at least it isn’t misleading.  Central African Republic is a landlocked country in, appropriately, central Africa.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

It is bordered by Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Republic of the Congo.  Living conditions in CAR are not good.  The country has been plagued by violence, wars, coups and infectious disease.  The US Sate Department has a travel warning that basically says; don’t go here if you can avoid it, warning of armed militia, bandits and poachers.  In fact they feel so strongly that this isn’t a safe place to be that the US Embassy has only limited staff and services.  For Central Africans life is extremely hard.  According to the CIA World Factbook, the median age of Central Africans is 19!  Compare this with the world median age of 28.4, US 36.9, UK 40, and Brazil 29.3 – yikes!  Malaria is widespread, HIV rates are high, and if those don’t get you there’s always the armed militias.  CAR has the 10th highest death rate in the world.

With all that said, there are still almost 5 million people from 80 different ethnic groups living in Central African Republic.  And, because they have a tropical climate and a couple of big rivers to provide water, the local economies are food based.  They grow corn, cassava, peanuts, millet, yams, bananas and coffee.  The food is richly flavored with influences from the many tribal and ethnic traditions represented in the population.  Meat is not widely consumed because livestock is affected by the tsetse flies that bring malaria to the countryside.  So for this country I decided to do another veggie burger.

I finally conquered my fear of cassava (yuca) and learned how to cook it safely – and I’m extremely glad I did (although as a side note, in my research I found some guy who cooks shirtless on youtube who demoed cooking cassava – it was fascinating, why would someone do this?).  Cassava makes a great side dish just mashed, with no extra fats or extreme seasoning.  It tastes like a really starchy potato with just a hint of sweetness and that sweetness balances out the spiciness of our sauce perfectly.  Note, you don’t want to undercook this or leave any of the skin on, cassava can be somewhat poisonous if not cleaned and cooked correctly – fortunately, it isn’t difficult to do.  🙂

Because I have enjoyed millet so much in other recipes, I used it here for the base of the veggie burger.  As for the sauce, it is really a combination of flavors that are typical in CAR.  Using fresh tomatoes gives it a very different and sweeter flavor than we had in Benin, but you will definitely detect some regional similarity between these two.  This was easily the ugliest burger I’ve made – the cassava and the millet cake are pretty pale, then you end up with a pinkish sauce on top that does nothing to the look of the dish.  I even considered adding lettuce or something else green, but the flavors were so good, I didn’t want to mess with it.  The sauce is spicy and creamy, the millet cake is nutty and crunchy then the cassava gives the whole thing a creamy lightly sweet base – yummy!  We served it with a Zin, cause I like Zin, but it would probably go better with a nice dark beer.  Enjoy!

Central African Burger
½ cup dried millet
1 teaspoon plus 2 Tablespoons peanut oil
1 cup corn (fresh from cob is best)
2 eggs lightly beaten
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup tapioca flour
Dash ground pepper
Cassava Mash (recipe below)
Spicy Peanut Sauce (recipe below)

Cook millet to package instruction, put into a large bowl.  In a medium sauté pan, heat 1 teaspoon peanut oil over medium heat.  Add corn and roast until just beginning to brown.   Remove from heat and add corn to millet.  Add eggs, salt, tapioca flour and pepper and mix thoroughly.  Form mixture into 4 patties.  In a large non-stick skillet, heat the remaining peanut oil until shimmering.  Add the patties and cook until golden then carefully turn and cook until both sides are golden and done (2-3 minutes per side).

Place a generous portion of the Cassava Mash on each plate.  Add cooked millet patties to each plate then top with a generous helping of the Spicy Peanut Sauce.  Serve hot.

Cassava Mash
1 pound cassava root (also known as yuca root)
water
1 teaspoon kosher salt

In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil.  With a very sharp knife, peel cassava root cleaning off all of the brown outer skin (the root is really dense and hard, so make sure your knife is sharp and you are careful).  Cut cleaned cassava into strips about ½ inch thick.  Rinse the cassava in cold water.  Add the cassava strips into the boiling water and cook until fork tender (about 30-45 minutes).  Warning, cassava soaks up water faster than potatoes do, keep an eye on your water levels lest you burn a pan like I did the first time I attempted this (note, burned cassava smells like burned paper – interesting).  Drain the cassava and place the cooked root in a bowl.  Mash with a potato masher.  If you need extra moisture (you shouldn’t as the root absorbs a ton of water), you can use the cooking water.  If you can’t find cassava root, you can use potato – I would use the all purpose potatoes versus Yukon gold or any of the fancy types because the texture and flavor of the all purpose potato is closer to the cassava texture and flavor.

Spicy Peanut Sauce
1 Tablespoon peanut oil
2 jalapenos diced
1 onion diced
4 tomatoes chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup natural peanut butter
½ cup water
½ teaspoon red pepper
2 cups baby spinach

In a medium sauté pan, heat peanut oil over medium heat.  Add onions and jalapenos and cook until onions are just turning translucent (2-3 minutes).  Add tomatoes and salt and cook for another minute.  Add the peanut butter and the water and cook over medium low heat for 5 minutes.  Taste and add red pepper if it needs more spice, adjust salt also.  Turn heat to low and simmer covered for 5 minutes.  Add spinach and cover and cook for 5 minutes or until spinach is wilted.  Stir and serve hot.

Central African Republic burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

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Cape Verdean burger recipe

Posted on August 18, 2011 by linda

Pork burger with Cachupa (stewed hominy) and Sweet Corn Bread

As I promised, we are getting to explore a lot of Africa in the “C’s”.  Our next adventure is in Cape Verde.  Cape Verde is a group of islands off the coast of Western Africa.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Total land mass is about the size of Rhode Island!  Speaking of Rhode Island, I’m lucky enough to know several Cape Verdeans, as Massachusetts and Rhode Island are popular places for expatriated Cape Verdeans.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Which brings me to another interesting factoid (these are compiled from a number of sources but all verified by CIA World Factbook – if the CIA says it’s true, it must be, right?) – there are more Cape Verdeans living abroad than currently live in Cape Verde!  True story.  Current population in the islands is around 500,000.  The Cape Verde islands were original uninhabited until the Portuguese came across them and decided to settle in.  Because most of the Portuguese didn’t bring their wives, but did bring their female slaves, the population of Cape Verde is primarily mixed race about half African and half European.

Cape Verde has suffered from many severe droughts, and with land that is limited and not suited to growing much, this drove a lot of the locals to leave.  Currently the biggest industry is tourism, from the pictures it looks like a lovely place to vacation.  Although the droughts made life difficult in Cape Verde, they do have a relatively stable government and have managed to avoid the violence and deep poverty that many of the other countries we’ll be talking about soon have endured.

Tiny country, small population, do they really have a cuisine that is distinctive?  Fortunately for me (and for you), they have Cachupa, the unofficial national dish.  Like so many national dishes, there are as many recipes for Cachupa as there are Cape Verdeans.  The basics are hominy, beans and meat.  I deconstructed a bit and added my own touches and made a burger topping that has the sweetness of corn balanced with beautiful ripe tomatoes and smoky bacon.  I used pork for the meat because pigs are great animals to raise on small amounts of land, then I added in a little Portuguese sausage to spice up the dish and add even more smokiness.  I couldn’t decide what to do for the starch so I whipped up a polenta and grilled it, I bought some Portuguese dinner rolls and I purchased a store made corn bread – we tried all three and, believe it or not, the corn bread won over the fancier options.  It was a slightly sweet cornbread and it really brought out the sweetness in the hominy and balanced the smokiness of the meat.  It was also easy to make (open container and slice to burger bun size) 🙂

The dish was slightly spicy because of the sausage, so if you want to avoid spice, just cut down on the sausage or leave it out entirely.  We tried a Portuguese wine with this burger, but I really can’t recommend it – I think a Pinot Noir or a light Chianti would be best, although beer would also work well.

Cape Verdean Burger
¼ pound linguica sausage
¾ pound ground pork
2 teaspoons peanut oil
Cornbread
Cachupa

Remove the casing from the sausage and pulse in a food processor just until sausage is texture of ground meat.  Combine the sausage and the pork and form into 4 patties.  In a non-stick skillet, heat peanut oil and cook patties until just done.  Remove burgers from pan.  Slice corn bread into 4 squares about ½ inch thick.  Grill lightly in pan until just warmed.  Serve the corn bread with burger patties and a generous helping of Cachupa.

Cachupa
3 slices of bacon chopped
1 medium onion diced (about ½ cup)
1 clove garlic thinly sliced
1 15 oz can of yellow hominy drained
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tomatoes chopped

In a medium sauté pan, brown bacon over medium heat until fat is rendered and bacon is crispy.  Add onion and garlic, sauté until onion is translucent.  Add hominy and salt, cook for 5 minutes stirring regularly.  Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer.  Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

 

Cape Verdean burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

 

Posted in african recipes, pork burgers | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Canada burger recipe

Posted on August 13, 2011 by linda

Caramelized onion, Cheese, gravy and French-fry (poutine) smothered burger.
Next stop, Canada!  I keep hearing the refrain from the South Park Movie – Blame Canada.  It’s been really annoying.  The whole time I’ve been working on Canada, it keeps looping, repeating incessantly in my head (I know that’s redundant, but that’s how annoying it is).  The worst part is that “Blame Canada” are the only words I remember, so I can’t really seem to get closure, cause I can’t finish the song.  I’m hoping that writing this up and moving on to the next country will be the fix I need.  So, Canada is a really big country at the northern end of North America.  It spans the full continent east to west, so it’s pretty big :).

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

I grew up in Michigan and Canada was so close I barely thought of it as a different country, let alone foreign.  I’ve been to Canada more times than I can remember, I have eaten in many fine Canadian restaurants, and I’ve even been in love with a Canadian.  But when I started thinking about a burger recipe, I was stumped.  There isn’t any food that I’ve had in Canada that I thought of as quintessentially Canadian.  The food is similar to what we have in the U.S. and the burgers are pretty much the same too.  So, I decided to treat Canada like any other country and research it – go online and see what people say about Canadian food.  It seems most countries have one or two dishes that people (either from that country or not) deem “the national dish”.  Canada is no different.  Poutine is the dish that gets the most mentions as “the national dish”.  It’s also a dish that you can’t get too many other places (although the Internet claims that it’s served in a lot of places in the Midwest U.S., I have never seen it on a menu in the States.

Poutine is pretty simple, French fries, gravy and fresh cheese curd.  It’s usually served as dish unto itself, but I, of course, figured it would be just as good on a burger!  Good so far, now the problems begin.  Fresh cheese curd is impossible to find, ok, not impossible, just really difficult.  I called local cheese shops, I tried to order online ($50 for shipping because it has to be over-nighted!  No way!), I finally gave up and decided to use fresh mozzarella and melt it on the burger and give up on the “squeak” of fresh curd.  I didn’t give up exactly, I also ordered a cheese making kit and will try to make some curd myself, but that isn’t going to happen for a couple of weeks, so we’ll proceed without it.  I’ll be sure to write up the cheese making experience when I get time to try it – but I’m figuring most of you aren’t interested in making your own cheese, right?

Now for the gravy.  The most common is a light gravy – chicken/poultry based.  If you want to get all French and chefy, velouté.  I was hoping that I could get gravy from the grocery store where they have the rotisserie chickens and that it would taste good.  Neither of the stores I went to sold gravy with their chickens (what do they do with the drippings?).  So then I tried dry packets, cartons and jars of pre-made sauce.  I won’t name the brands because all of the dried packets were TERRIBLE!  The best tasted like thyme and nothing else, the worst tasted like feet.  None tasted like chicken.  So, I bought some chicken thighs and roasted them with a few mushrooms and made a gravy from the drippings and water.  It was delicious and the chicken meat made a good salad.  If you get in a bind, the best pre-made gravy I found was Heinz Home Style Chicken Gravy – in a jar, but I recommend just making a white sauce with homemade chicken stock, it’s got a much better flavor.

For the fries I just bought frozen fries.  Yes, homemade fries would be better, but they are a pain to make and the frozen alternative is so easy.  Also, it’s hard to get a crispy homemade French fry, and you do want them crispy so that the whole burger doesn’t turn into a soggy mess.

Lastly I broke with poutine tradition and added caramelized onions to the top – the sweetness and the moisture worked perfectly with the fries and the gravy and gave a greater richness to the dish.  We served our burgers with a Washington State cabernet (my store doesn’t carry Canadian wines) and it was light and balanced the potentially heaviness of the dish (we also decided to go open faced in order to not over starch ourselves).  The result was a rich savory burger that was surprisingly not overly heavy.  The light mushroom flavor in the gravy really added to the overall effect.  I still think it’s suited more to autumn or winter than a warm August evening, but what the heck do I know?

Canadian Burger
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
4 Brioche buns
butter (at room temperature)
2 cups cooked French fries (preferably thick cut)
2 cups Chicken Gravy
Caramelized onions

Mix ground beef with salt and pepper and form into 4 patties.  Grill to desired temperature.  In the meantime, slice the brioche buns and spread butter on each side, grill until lightly browned (you can also use just two buns if you want to do open faced sandwiches).  Placed cooked patties on the grilled buns.  Add fries to each burger then pour on a generous helping of gravy and top with caramelized onions.  Serve hot.

Chicken Gravy
4 chicken thighs (bone in and skin on)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 Tablespoon olive oil
6 mushrooms quartered and stemmed
1 cup chicken stock (preferably homemade)
1-2 cups water
2 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour

Rinse the chicken thighs and pat dry.  Sprinkle salt and thyme over both sides of chicken.  Preheat oven to 350°F.  In an ovenproof skillet, heat oil to shimmering.  Place chicken in pan skin side down and cook until lightly browned (about 3 minutes).  Turn chicken, add mushrooms and chicken stock and put in over for 15 minutes.  Add water and cook for an additional 30 minutes until chicken is cooked through.  Strain the drippings (use the chicken for another dish).  Taste the drippings and adjust seasoning.

In a saucepan, melt butter over med-low heat.  Add the flour stirring constantly for about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and add the chicken drippings whisking vigorously.  Turn the heat to med-high and whip until sauce comes to a boil.  Stir for another minute until it reaches desired thickness.  Use immediately.

Caramelized onions
2 large onions sliced in halve then sliced into ¼ inch slices
1 Tablespoon olive oil

Heat oil over medium heat.  Add onions and stir until well coated with oil.  Turn heat down to med-low and cook for 20-30 minutes until sweet and soft.

 

Canada burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

 

Posted in north american recipes | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Cameroonian burger recipe

Posted on August 7, 2011 by linda

Chicken Burger with Spicy Kale and White Yams
I hope you are learning to love African cuisine because 7 of the 17 “C” countries are in Africa, so we’ll be here a lot over the next few months.  Fortunately my family is enjoying the ride so far and the flavors and ingredients aren’t nearly as exotic as I feared.

Courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Cameroon is our next stop on our world burger adventure.  Cameroon is o the Western coast of central Africa.   It’s bordered by Chad, Central Africa, Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon (notice three more “C” countries?).

Courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Cameroon, unlike some of the African countries we’ve visited does have some oil and agriculture (mainly coffee), this has brought Cameroon up to 184 out of 286 in terms of GDP per capita – party city, right?  Unfortunately, Cameroon suffers from widespread HIV AIDs ranking 15th in the world for people living with AIDs and 11thin the world for deaths related to AIDs (according to the CIA World Factbook).  So, we again have a situation of life being hard and life being fragile.  Again I am thankful that I didn’t start a political blog.

Let’s move on to the food.  The food of Cameroon is similar to that of many other countries in the region.  You see a lot of yucca, yam, plantains, corn, millet and potatoes for the starches.  Again the Cameroonians frequently eat a paste made of sorghum and water.  Again, I can’t find any way to make this mixture taste like anything but cornstarch and water, yuck!  Exploring the cuisine of Cameroon, I discovered a new flavor/ingredient.  White yams, not those orange things that we sometimes call yams, but white yams.  These cooked up beautifully with a taste like a regular potato with just a hint of sweetness, not the cloyingly sweet flavor of sweet potato, more like jicama without the crunchy texture.  If you can’t find it, substitute regular potato, but try to search it out (it only took me two grocery stores to find some).

The national dish of Cameroon is ndolé, a stew of nuts, fish, beef and bitter greens.  Cameroonians are wild about bitter greens and eat them just about every day.  There are dozens of recipes for ndolé, and I basically ignored all of them and just stuck with the core flavors rather than try to recreate this dish.  I did this for two reasons – first, I thought the stew sounded like a terrible topping for a burger and second all of the recipes I found involved dried fish and shrimp and I really don’t like dried fish, it tastes way too fishy for my palate.  So, I broke it down to some of the key flavors.

I started with the bitter greens.  We can’t get bitter greens around here, so my reading indicates that kale is the best substitute.  I like kale, so I felt that was a good start.  Traditionally the greens in Cameroon are cooked for an hour or more and they turn that horrible dull green color that so many people seem to like.  I prefer a little life in my veggies, so I did a more vibrant version.  I put some fish sauce in the dish as a nod to the fishiness of the traditional recipe and included a healthy helping of peppers to spice the dish up.  Caution – Cameroonian food is spicy!  Add a little Maggi seasoning and you have a surprisingly tasty topping.  The greens give a slightly bitter flavor, the Maggi and fish sauce give a strong brininess that balances the heat of the peppers.  When you combine this with the slightly sweet yams, you get a wonderfully balanced and delicious dish.  I chose chicken for the protein on this burger because I thought it went best with the spicy greens, it was a great choice.  A little tomato finishes it off with a bit of sweetness.  Beware, the greens are very salty, so if you want to salt your meat, just go lightly.  I salted, but actually used a measuring spoon to make sure I didn’t get too much.

If you have to substitute potatoes for the yams, just save the water you cook them in and add a little of it to the potatoes as you mash them (about ½ cup), I also added a little bit, about ¼ of a cube, of Maggi chicken bouillon to the potatoes because they are such a bland starch.

One other note, this was the least like a burger of any (except the fish burgers) that I’ve made so far.  It was tasty and everyone enjoyed it, but it won’t satisfy you if you are craving a burger.  Try it instead when you are in the mood for something spicy and a little exotic.

Cameroon Burger
1 pound ground chicken
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon red pepper
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons peanut oil
White Yams
1 tomato sliced thin
Spicy Kale

Mix chicken, salt, red pepper and black pepper together until evenly combined.  Form four patties from the mixture.  In a large non-stick pan over medium high heat, heat oil until glassy.  Add patties to the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes or until lightly browned.  Turn and cook until done (I use a digital thermometer to ensure that the chicken is fully cooked).

Scoop some yams on each plate, then place the cooked patties on the yams, top with tomato slices and Spicy Kale.  My mom suggested plating the kale between the yams and the chicken and that did balance the flavors better, but it didn’t look as pretty – so you decide how you want to plate, try one of each and see which tastes better to you and let me know!

White Yams
3 white yams (approximately 2 pounds)
water

Peel the yams and cut into thirds.  Place the yams in a pot of water and bring to a boil.  Boil until the yams are fork tender.  Drain.  In a medium bowl, mash the yams using a potato masher.  You want this rustic, so don’t go for a totally smooth texture.

Spicy Kale
1 Tablespoon peanut oil
½ cup chopped onion
1 large jalapeno diced
1 clove of garlic minced
4 cups of chopped kale
½ inch fresh ginger grated
1 Maggi chicken bouillon cube
2 Tablespoons fish sauce
½ cup water

Heat peanut oil in a medium sauté pan over medium high heat.  Add onions and jalapeno and cook 2-3 minutes stirring regularly (adjust heat so that nothing burns).  Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over medium heat until greens are wilted (about 15 minutes), stir regularly and serve hot.

Cameroonian burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

 

 

 

 

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Cambodian burger recipe

Posted on August 3, 2011 by linda

BH&T Cambodia Burger RecipeLoc Lac Sliders
So sorry for the delay in getting this recipe posted.  My niece and nephew came for a visit and we were having too much fun to spend time typing.  It was a wonderful visit (Samantha and I made baby back ribs on the Weber – first time for both of us, they were outstanding, yeah us!).   The kids are back in Arizona and I am back to work writing and cooking.

Courtesy of CIA World Factbook

Our first “C” country is Cambodia.  The Kingdom of Cambodia is in Southeast Asia bordered by Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and coastline along the Gulf of Thailand.  Whenever I think of Cambodia, I am reminded of “Swimming to Cambodia”, an amazing film of one of Spaulding Grey’s most engaging monologs.  If you’ve never heard of Spaulding Grey, check out “Swimming to Cambodia” and you’ll learn a bit about making movies and the history of the Vietnam conflict while laughing and maybe being inspired. The funny thing about Cambodia is that I started researching the country and the food, spent about a day on background and then had an “ah hah” moment when I remembered that, oh yeah, I’ve eaten Cambodian food, and I love it!

Courtesy of CIA World Factbook

There was a wonderful restaurant in Waltham called Carambola that specialized in Cambodian food, unfortunately, the restaurant has since reconfigured and become Elephant Walk Waltham (same owners).  Fortunately, Elephant Walk still has Cambodian food (just combined with French food too) and Elephant Walk in Brookline delivers, so we ordered up a feast!  Yum, yum, yum.

Cambodian food draws a lot of inspiration from Thai and Vietnamese food with of course, overtones of French cuisine.  The overall effect is incredibly rich food with, to my palate, deeper more hearty flavors than Vietnamese food and subtler without the spiciness of Thai food.  The Cambodians are also especially fond of a fermented fish paste called prohoc that, luckily for us, I couldn’t find here.  J  You can get a burger in Cambodia at the local Lucky Burger, but as far as I can tell, it’s a pretty basic McDonald’s knock off so let’s just move on without further ado.

I could not resist trying to transform the traditional Loc Lac into a burger and it worked beautifully.  Loc Lac is traditionally made with beef cubes in a rich sweet and salty sauce.  I made sliders so that I could maximize the amount of sauce in every bite.  The result was one of the best looking and best tasting burgers to date, top it off with cooked onions, a little mint and red pepper and you have a treat everyone will enjoy.  Even my dad gave this recipe a thumbs up – I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

I have no idea why, but if you like this, I think you might enjoy the Jordanian burger.  The flavors are totally different, but both seem to fall in some similar category in my head – they are both rich, full flavored burgers that stick in your memory (and that’s saying something given how many burgers I’ve tried).

Cambodia Burgers
¼ cup mushroom soy sauce
3 teaspoons garlic minced
Pinch red pepper
¼ cup dark brown sugar packed
Juice of one lime
⅛ cup fish sauce
1 medium onion sliced lengthwise then chopped ½ inch pieces
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 French baguette
Lettuce
Red pepper sliced thin
Fresh mint chopped (optional)
Fresh basil chopped (optional)

In a medium bowl, combine first six ingredients.  Whisk until sugar is dissolved.  Add onions and let sit for 15 minutes.

In a medium sauté pan, heat peanut oil over medium high heat.  Strain onions (retain the sauce); add onions to the hot pan.  Sauté for 2-3 minutes until beginning to soften.  Remove onions from pan and set aside.

In another bowl, combine ground beef with salt and pepper.  Form mixture into 8 patties 2 ounces each.  Make sure the pan from the onions is still warm (turn the heat back on).  Add the patties to the pan and cook until meat is about half done.  Pour a teaspoon or two of the reserved sauce on the uncooked side of the patties and turn the patties.  Finish cooking to desired temperature.

Remove burgers from pan and place on a platter with foil covering to keep warm.  Pour the remainder of the sauce into the pan and deglaze the pan.  Reduce the sauce by about a third, and then pour the sauce into a serving bowl.

Slice the baguette into 16 pieces and toast the slices.  Layer lettuce on eight of the toast slices. Place a slider patty on top of the lettuce. Top with onions then herbs and red pepper and serve with another slice of bread on top and extra sauce on the side.

Cambodian burger recipe

 

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

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Burundian burger recipe

Posted on July 21, 2011 by linda

BH&T Burundi burger recipePiri Piri Fish Cake with red beans, plantains and pickled carrots
The Republic of Burundi is our final “B” country, so please take a moment with me and raise your glass in celebration.

courtesy of CIA World Factbook

It’s a landlocked country in the middle of Africa, bordered by Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  According to the CIA World Factbook, Burundi ranks 228 out of 228 for GDP per capita.  The UN Human Development Index ranks Burundi 166 out of 169 countries and according to the UN, 81.3% of the population is living on less than $1.25 per day.  81.3%!  It amazes me that we don’t hear about this every night on the news.  It amazes me that I’ve never heard a single news report about the 10 million people living in Burundi, most of them in poverty.

I had to stop reading about the politics and economics in Burundi, it made me want to start a whole new blog to try to bring attention to these countries that I’m just learning about.  But then I realize that I’m not the right person for that, I’d just get too sad or pissed off then I would empty my paltry savings in an attempt to do some good and my children would not have any way to afford college…well, you get the idea.  What I will do as we go along is point out highlights/lowlights and hope that all of us just paying attention will make a difference, or at least a start.

The good news is that stuff grows in Burundi and they have a large freshwater lake, so the cuisine isn’t as limited as you might think.  Like other places where resources are tight, stretching food is critical.  I tried again to make a sorghum paste (a traditional dish in Burundi), but I can’t get this to taste like anything other than paste.  So, I switched up the starch and focused instead on the traditional red kidney beans and plantains that is generally considered the Burundian national dish.  According to several articles I read, this is eaten at least once a day by most Burundians.  I kept this simple and classic, because I wanted it to be a good base for my fish.  For the fish, I went with the only freshwater fish that I like, tilapia, and spiced it way up with Piri Piri sauce, then balanced with a little sweet roasted corn – yummy!  Some pickled carrots give the dish a little color and crunch and a drizzle of lemon aioli was the perfect compliment.  I don’t know if Burundians eat mayonnaise, but I figured they have eggs and oil, mayonnaise didn’t seem like a giant leap.  Go light with the aioli though – it can overpower and you want to make sure you are getting the full flavor of the fish cake and the beans.

We served this with a light Chardonnay for my husband and, I must admit, a white Zinfandel for me (it’s a summer only thing for me – and it works with spicy food pretty well).  This recipe is a bit complicated and takes time to prepare, but it is worth the effort and much of it can be made ahead of time.

If you enjoy this burger, try another fish cake favorite of mine, the Belizean burger is full of wonderful fresh flavors and will give you range of tastes in the fishcake world.

Burundi Burger
1 pound tilapia fillets
4 Tablespoons Piri Piri sauce (recipe below)
5 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon peanut oil
½ cup fresh corn cut off the cob (approximately one small ear)
1 egg lightly beaten
½ cup tapioca flour
Kosher salt
Red Beans and Plantains (recipe below)
Pickled Carrots (recipe below)
Lemon Aioli (recipe below)

Coat the tilapia fillets with 2 Tablespoons of the Piri Piri sauce and let the fish sit in a glass dish for a half hour at room temperature.  Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat 1 teaspoon of peanut oil over medium high heat.  Add the corn and a pinch of salt.  Roast, stirring regularly until corn is lightly browned.  Remove from heat.

In a large non-stick skillet, heat 2 Tablespoons peanut oil over medium high heat until shimmering.  Cook the tilapia in the hot oil for about 2 minutes per side until just cooked through.  Remove the fish to a large bowl and use a fork to flake the fish.  Add 2 Tablespoons Piri Piri sauce and mix well.  Cool in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.  Drain the excess liquid from the fish mixture.  Add egg, corn, flour and 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.

Heat 3 Tablespoons of oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat until shimmering.  Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop the fish mixture into the hot oil then immediately press flat with a spatula.  Cook until golden then turn and cook until heated through and golden (about 2-3 minutes per side).

Serve a large scoop of Red Beans and Plantains on each plate, then place the cooked fish cakes on top.  Garnish with the Pickled Carrots and a drizzle of Lemon Aioli.  Serve the beans and fish hot.

Piri Piri Sauce
10 dried bird chilies
1 dried hot Thai chili
1-2 fresh red jalapenos
2 Tablespoons fresh Italian parsley (chopped)
Juice of one lemon
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup peanut oil

Put all ingredients in a small food processor and pulse until thoroughly combined.  Let sit in a glass container at room temperature for at least 12 hours.  You can refrigerate after that if you need to, just bring the sauce back to room temperature before using.  You can use less of the dried chilies and/or more mild chilies to temper the spiciness if you want.  Removing the seeds will also make for a less fiery sauce.

BH&T Burkina Faso piri piri sauce

Pickled Carrots
1 large carrot sliced extremely thin (I love a mandoline for this, best kitchen tool ever!)
1 cherry pepper diced (you can substitute any other mild pepper)
¼ teaspoon brown mustard seeds (much milder than the yellow variety – if you can’t find any, just skip the mustard seeds)
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar

Add all ingredients together in a glass bowl and refrigerate until ready to use (at least an hour).

Lemon Aioli
½ cup mayonnaise
Juice of ½ lemon
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper

In a small bowl whisk mayonnaise, lemon juice and olive oil then salt and pepper to taste.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Red Beans and Plantains
1 cup dry kidney beans
6 cups water
4 Tablespoons peanut oil
1 medium onion diced
1 plantain diced
Kosher salt

Rinse beans and place in a large pot with 3 cups of water.  Bring to a boil then remove from heat and soak covered for 4 hours.  Drain and rinse the beans.  In the same large pot, heat 1 Tablespoon of the peanut oil and sauté the onions in the oil until translucent.  Add the beans and the remaining 3 cups of water and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Simmer for 2 hours or until beans are soft.  You can shortcut this recipe using canned beans, just cook them until heated through and don’t over cook.  You won’t get the same texture, but you will save a lot of time.

In a medium skillet, heat 3 Tablespoons of peanut oil until shimmering.  Add the diced plantains and sprinkle with salt.  Sauté the plantains until lightly browned.  Remove the plantains with a slotted spoon and add to the red beans.  Fold together gently.  Serve hot.  You can do this ahead of time, but save the plantains for the day you are going to serve this.  I made the mistake of refrigerating this overnight before creating my photo burger the next day – the plantains go mushy and a little brown, everything still tasted good, but the texture wasn’t as good and it wasn’t as pretty.

BH&T Red Beans and Plantains

Burundian burger recipe

©Copyright 2011 Linda Monach

Posted in african recipes, fish burgers | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments