Black Bean Burgers

Don't underestimate the Glutamate!

I've posted before about burgers from Lukas Volger's Veggie Burgers Every Which Way. I kind of OD'd on falafel burgers, so I'm giving them a rest for now. Will definitely go back to them, though--they're just so tasty.

My latest foray into the veggie burger world was Black Bean Burgers. When I followed the recipe exactly I found it to be a bit bland in both taste and texture. I wasn't looking for the spiciness of a falafel burger, but instead craved a patty with quiet, simple flavors that give the hearty satisfaction of a good beef burger.

What his bean mixture needed was a good dose of glutamates--glutamic acid naturally occurs in a wide variety of foods and provides what is called "umami"--the "fifth taste" beyond sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Google umami and you'll see a ton of articles explaining what it is. Basically umami is "savory." Add ingredients naturally rich in glutamates--such as tomatoes, mushrooms, anchovies--and whatever you're cooking suddenly becomes much richer, all without the addition of many calories (it only takes a teeny squirt of anchovy paste to make a stew sing). Some glutamate-rich foods are caloric, such as roquefort cheese, but let's be honest--how much roquefort should you put in a recipe? --very little, otherwise it just takes over your dish. A little dab'll do ya.

So this is Lukas Volger's easy-peasy recipe for Easy Bean Burgers, umami'd up and tweaked even easier-peasier by yours truly. He fries, then bakes his, which I found dried out the exterior and left the interior a little mushy. My version cooks faster with better mouth feel.

1 1/2 cups cooked beans (any medium to large starchy beans, such as black or red beans, chickpeas, cranberry beans, or pintos. I used a 15-oz can of unsalted black beans, drained)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan (an umami-delivery ingredient)
2 tsp Dijon mustard (umami)
2 handfuls crimini mushrooms, chopped small, sauteed in olive oil (deglaze pan with a little red wine or stout to add even more umami)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup toasted bread crumbs (I used panko)

In a mixing bowl, mash the beans using a potato masher or fork. Fold in the eggs, parsley, Parmesan, mustard, mushrooms, oregano, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Fold in the bread crumbs, adding more if the mixture is too loose. Set aside for 5-10 minutes to let the crumbs soak up moisture. Shape into 5 patties.

Set the patties on a microwave-safe plate and cook on high for 4 minutes. (At this point, you can set aside those you don't plan to eat right away. Refrigerate or freeze, thawing before the final saute.)

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet or griddle and fry the patties for 2-3 minutes on each side to give a nice finished texture.

I would post a photo of my burger accomplishments, except that I ate it all.

Royal Icing with Ponzu

The official Royal Icing recipe:

2-3 large egg whites (I use pasteurized whites)
1 lb confectioners sugar
Dash vanilla
Juice of 1 lemon

additional ingredients: Ponzu marinade, balsamic vinegar, Tabasco (of course)

Combine egg whites, vanilla, and sugar on low speed using flat beater (not wire whisk). Add lemon juice to thin the icing to a spreadable consistency. Stir in food coloring. Use immediately or store in an airtight container at room temp.




My niece Alissa graduated and turned 18 last week. That much accomplishment required a fair amount of celebration. Of course I volunteered for a fun thing--a plate of cookies celebrating my girlie. Because these cookies were travelling a bit between making and eating, I frosted them with royal icing, which is fairly indestructible.


Getting the consistency right is a process—the recipe above will make a nicely viscous frosting that could glue furniture together. I add too much lemon juice, then I need to thicken up again with more sugar, and eventually need a bit more egg white to keep everything balanced. It’s okay, because more icing means more color options for the cookies. Along the way, I generally end up tossing in a few drops of Tabasco because everything can use a little, and a few more drops of balsamic vinegar, for the same reason.

This time I did start with lemon juice, but it was from a Meyer lemon whose lovely flavor was too gentle to stand up to all that sugar. I needed more punch, so I pulled out my bottle of Ponzu sudachi marinade—it’s mostly mirin, citrus juice, rice vinegar, and I don’t know what else but has a really bright profile.

Suddenly the royal icing wasn’t just a convenient vehicle for color flow on sugar cookies, but its own really yummy element. All the citric acid made the icing behave properly and set firmly, and the flavor made those cookies rather hard to resist—I don’t care how long you’ve worked on cookies, it’s so satisfying to watch them disappear.

Sweet on sweet potatoes

Like pretty much anyone raised by a midwestern mom, I'm big on breakfast. Eggs, buckwheat pancakes, french toast, oatmeal--hearty, wholesome food. Best of all, though, are hashbrowns. Chunks of potatoes, preferably with onions and peppers, maybe some diced sausage. However, I've pretty much given up on white potatoes. Too much starch, high glycemic load--not enough upside to make up for the downside. I'll still enjoy a plate of country fries for breakfast after a bike hike or race, and of course mashed potatoes are still my all-time favorite special occasion side dish.

I've also grown up on sweet potatoes, baked in their skins and eaten simply with butter and salt. However, it wasn't until sweet potato fries became prevalent that I started thinking of that "other potato" as an alternative to (and tastier version of) the good ol' spud. I love a plate of sweet potato fries 'way beyond what I ever felt for regular white fries, but they still aren't all that healthy, with the extra starch coating given all fries to make them crisp up more easily. (By the way, boiled sweet potatoes supposedly have much lower glycemic load than baked, since the shorter cooking time reduces sugar conversion.)

This morning's breakfast hash is a great example of how a trusty regular can be so easily improved by this small switch--they cut more easily, cook faster so don't soak up the same amount of oil, and develop deeper sweeter flavor. Every bite of sweet potato, onion, zucchini, and parsley was simple and pure heaven.

Deep green, deep flavor

A blogger's obsession with kale inspired me to grab a bunch on my last trip to Stater Brothers. It's such a beautiful green but I have tended to think of it just as the frilly but indestructible filler wedged between bowls in a cafeteria salad bar.

It's Friday, and a late afternoon run delivered me home with a hungry tummy and less patience than I normally have for making the meal that starts out my weekend. I just wanted supper!

First thing, get some pasta boiling. Whole wheat, something that'll stick to my ribs.

Then, saute up some onion, garlic, and mushrooms--a base for the kale, just because eating kale after a five-mile run seems like what one ought to do. I'd forgotten how long kale takes to cook, so when it wasn't softening up fast enough, even though I'd sliced out the ribs and chopped it fairly small, I poured in a little pasta water and slapped a lid on the frying pan (cast iron, of course!).

Finishing touches included dried basil, a few pepper flakes, and my favorite chopped walnuts.

When I sprinkled parmesan on the dish and dug in, I was just expecting a forkful of healthy, satisfying pasta. What surprised me was how complex and charming the flavor profile was. Layers of nutty--the expected flavor from the wheat pasta and the walnuts, enhanced by unexpected nuttiness from the kale. Now I understand that blogger's obsession with it, and am now on my own dark green odyssey.