Cajun Bean and Feta Burgers from Tesco Real Food

Hello friends and welcome back! I have such a backlog of recipes to share with you, and when I sat down about 20 minutes ago to go through my recipe albums to decide which one to pick, I was taken aback at how old some of the albums actually are (ie. how long ago I made some of these dishes and just haven't got round to talking about them) and that I am now far too dissatisfied with many of the photos to even want to publish them. I thought I had about 15 or so albums of recipes on my laptop, but of those, the number I am happy to share has diminshed to four! I really can't believe how simply dreadful my photographs were to begin with, and how quickly they've changed, even in the last few months. So I need to get photographing again basically, to restock my recipes to be shared folder and increase what options I have to share with you. Some of the recipes I had on my list are from spring, and are just so unseasonal now. So I've decided for this evening to share a delicious recipe I cooked not too long ago from Tesco Real Food: Cajun Bean and Feta Burgers. I think it's a really good transitional recipe as it's hearty with the beans and spice, yet if you don't serve it with anything on the side, it is sufficiently substantial for a main course yet light enough for one not to be overly full after eating it.

As you'll see, I didn't buy the fluffy, floury, tasteless white bread rolls (I'm not a fan, can you tell?) but made my own rolls in which to serve the buns, the recipe for which I'll provide in a moment. These are much heartier than the generic rolls the recipe specified, and make the overall meal far more interesting and enjoyable. Obviously you will need to prepare the dough in advance, but it takes no time and is worth it in my opinion. My recipe is actually adapted from the recipe on a packet of Tesco Stoneground Wholemeal Flour. The original is pretty delicious, I just made it a bit more adaptable. Here follows the recipe for malted grain, seeded bread rolls. As you can see from the photos, I made rather generously sized rolls, two large and one smaller, for a little one (I can't even remember where the other little one was, it feels like so long ago since I made this meal!)

Ingredients
200g strong wholemeal bread flour
100g strong white bread flour
15g butter
1/4 tsp salt
Scant tbsp dried active yeast
200ml warm water
1 tsp sugar (I use golden granulated)
50g mixed seeds of your choice
1 tbsp honey

Method
Measure out 150ml  warm water, add the tsp sugar and stir in the yeast. Set aside for ten minutes until the yeast has risen to the surface.
Menwhile, put the two types of flour and salt in a large mixing bowl along with the butter, chopped up into small pieces. mix together well and rub in the butter.
Stir in the seeds.
Make a well in the middle and add the yeast mixture, remaining 50ml warm water and honey and bring together with a wooden spoon, changing to using your fingers once it's really coming together.
Transfer to a floured surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling-film and leave to rise until doubled in size (approximately 1 1/2 hours).

Once risen, knock back briefly then shape into one smaller and two larger rolls. Place on an oiled baking sheet and cover with oiled cling-film (just reuse the piece from the first prove) until roughly doubled in size again. Pre-heat the oven to Fan 200C.

Once risen, place in the pre-heated oven for around 20 minutes, until nicely golden and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped.

You can either make these much earlier in the day or to coincide with the burgers being ready. A good time is probably for them to be ready around half an hour before the burgers, as they will still taste fresh from the oven, but will have cooled sufficiently for the salad leaves not to wilt and the avocado to stay fresh.

As usual when I'm going through a recipe from the internet, you'll find the ingredients list and full method on the original site by linking here. Here is my ingredients photo though. It's looking very fresh and healthy, I must say. I always make my own breadcrumbs in my food processor, so make sure you prepare yours before getting the ingredients together.

The onion is the first thing to be added to a pre-heated pan. 

Once it's in, you can get to work preparing the other ingredients. 

 

Adding the garlic, chilli and cajun spice

 The completed onion mixture

The onion mixture is added to a bowl along with the rest of the ingredients. In the recipe it doesn't specify, but I added the dry ingredients first, followed by the lime juice and beated egg. And don't forget the seasoning.

As you can see, I divided my mixture into three rather than four, and, having the healthy appetite that I do, I don't remember reducing the recipe amounts, I probably just made Husb and my burgers larger with the extra mixture!

 The prepared burgers are placed in the fridge to firm up for 15 minutes or so. This is actually quite an important step as it really does help in the handling of the burgers, particularly in terms of transferring them to the pan. It just makes them less likely to fall apart.

Once chilled, the burgers are added to a pan pre-heated with a generous glug (my words, not the recipes, but I can tell you that one tablespoon of oil will absolutely not be enough to sufficiently cook these beasts) of olive oil. You could also use coconut oil if you like.

 Now you can prepare your lovely, fresh bread rolls.

I like things charred, ok?!?

Then you can add the remaining ingredients to finish off the burgers; rocket and avocado topped with a dollop of sour cream.

Now, I wondered if any of you have spotted my error. Can you see those delicious squares of feta, delicately tumbling from the mouth-watering pile of ingredients upon the burger? Well they were supposed to be added to the burger mixture, but because I'd returned the feta to the fridge until it was required in the recipe after I'd taken my ingredients photo, I forgot to get it back out and therefore completely forgot to add it to the burgers. So I added it to the topping instead. I don't think it made a huge amount of difference, except there weren't any pleasantly charred, melting chunks of feta on the outsides of the burgers. To be honest, it would probably be nice with feta both in the burgers and as part of the topping.

I know, how did we even begin to tackle this monster? Cocktail sticks were instrumental in holding it together!

I have to really heartily recommend this recipe. It goes along with my current interest in really thinking about what I'm eating; it is healthy and delicious, and can be made even better by making ones own bread rolls. It's one of those fantastic dishes which goes to show one doesn't need meat for a meal to be scrummy. Beans and avocado are soooo good for you, as is rocket, yet there is a playful addition of feta and a kick of mild spice to add interest. This is a great recipe for families as children can just pick up each component separately if they like, and you know the burger they are consuming actually has a lot of nutritional value. If you don't have time to make your own burger buns, just buy some nice, fresh, seeded malted grain or wholemeal rolls from a bakery or supermarket with a bakery.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Let me know if you get round to making them.

xxx Sam