The Great Veggie Burger Challenge: Round 1

It’s summer, it’s hot, and I want to do some grilling.  These days the grill is only a minor issue for vegetarians, mostly limited to “keep my soy away from your meat!”  There is a nice array of veggie grill options in most stores, from Boca Burgers to soy dogs (which are so remarkably hotdog-like that I might prefer them to the “real” thing, even if I weren’t vegetarian, just because I know what’s in them).  But I have never been quite satisfied with commercial veggie burgers.  They are too flat, too round, and often not that tasty.  They just don’t fill the “burger” spot in my stomach.  And besides, what’s the fun of opening a box of frozen pre-processed “burgers” and dropping them on the grill.  On the other hand, most homemade veggie burgers I’ve eaten have been  either dry and flavorless, or crumbly.  Not too satisfying.  And portobello burgers are tasty, but not filling.

Thus, I propose the Great Veggie Burger Challenge.  Every week (or so), I’ll make veggie burgers from scratch, seeking the Perfect Veggie Burger.  I’ll try different ingredients, different flavors, and different methods in the search, looking for that just-right combination.  Feel free to share your own recipes, too, or comment with your ideas; I suspect there are many satisfying variations.

A good veggie burger need not taste like a hamburger.  In fact, it’s better if it doesn’t — I was never crazy about hamburgers.  But it needs to be burger-like in the important ways.  To my mind, the criteria for a great burger are that it should be:

• substantial: hefty enough to make a good meal
• solid; holding together on its own
• moist; not dry or tough inside (but well-done on the outside)
• flavorful; we’ll be missing the meat juices, so give our taste buds something to be excited about!
• healthy (at least, relatively so); this has always been one advantage of veggie burgers over the originals
• easy; obviously making veggie burgers will take more work than shaping ground beef into patties, but it should still be simple enough for a casual meal

Bonus points if the burger is vegan.  This is an extra credit category just because eggs are so often used as binders in these sorts of things.

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Tonight was round 1 of the Challenge: quinoa and black bean burgers.  Technically, it started on Sunday when I made the burgers, but by the time they were ready to cook, it looked like rain, so I stuck them in the fridge and saved them for a sunny day.  And today, Thursday, was the first day it was possible to grill.  (It has rained every day this week, and last night was a thunderstorm of epic proportions that left us in a blackout for 6 hours.)

These burgers were a satisfying first attempt, but they need some work.  The flavor was very good: full of garlic and onion and herbs, and the quinoa gave it a hearty taste.  And they were healthy, full of protein and vegetables.  They took a little longer to prepare than I would like, but the big problem was the texture.  They were wet and doughy, and our little grill didn’t get hot enough to cook them properly.  They kept sticking to the grill, and never really turned into burgers, just patties of mush.  The mush looked weird enough that I’m not posting photos this time.  (I will in the future, I promise.)  But, it was tasty!

The problem, I think, was using flour as a binder.  The combination of flour and quinoa made them more like sticky biscuits than burgers.  Next time, I think I’ll investigate eggs (despite my fear that the result will be too wet) or flax.  I might also try using more beans compared to the quinoa, so the quinoa is more of a binder than the substance of the thing.

• First, I combined some dry quinoa, a can of black beans, vegetable stock, and salt/pepper in a pot and cooked until both the beans and the quinoa were slightly over-done.  My theory was that this sticky, starchy product would hold together better than other bean burgers I’ve had.  I was sort of right, and sort of wrong.  They held together, but stayed mushy.
• While the quinoa cooked, I sauted some very finely-chopped vidalia onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil.  When they were nice and soft, I added some finely-chopped mushroom, frozen spinach and dried oregano.  I continued to saute until everything was soft; my goal was to have the ingredients meld together, rather than have the separate components stand out.
• I combined the quinoa-mixture with the veggies, adjusted the seasoning, and added some maple syrup.  This sounds weird, but just a little sweetness was absolutely key to the flavor.
• Finally, I added flour until the big, wet, sticky mess was thick enough to hold together on a grill.  The consistency was close to biscuit dough.  And they did hold together, and didn’t fall through the grate, but they were soft enough that they were hard to work with.
• Served them on kaiser buns with cheddar cheese.  Ate them at a picnic table outside my apartment and watched the fireflies come out.  Yes, summer is here!