{"id":7136,"date":"2021-10-23T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=7136"},"modified":"2021-10-24T09:57:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T14:57:36","slug":"bean-burger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2021\/10\/bean-burger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Bean Burger, Well So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The first rule for vegans ought to be, “Forget about trying to fool carnos with meatless analogs.” A “realistic” homemade meatless hamburger has too much prep and unexpected ingredients (beets for bloodiness), while the new generation of store-bought patties is highly processed and unexpectedly expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But happy childhood memories of frankfurters spring from the mouthfeel and even the taste of a carrot coney<\/a>. Then this summer I found the best bean burger to date. You can’t reasonably expect to fake a beef burger, but there’s no reason not to discover or modify* recipes for the veggiest veggie burger. (* “Modify” because nothing is original, nothing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously, my go-to, no recipe needed, comprised all or part of a drained can of black beans partially mashed with some onion, a few spoons of salsa, mashed into patties. Quick, tasted OK, too mushy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then web surfing finally landed on Quinoa Burger<\/a> from Feel Good Foodie. Yumna Jawad’s clear recipe taught the burger “dough” should be far dryer than any I’d tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jawad led me to take the grain component more seriously. My main adaptation was using leftover cooked grain, not cooking quinoa just for this, and for me forms a half-dozen burgers. It’s easily doubled. I usually have cooked grains in the fridge left over from something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would ours beat hamburgers in a blind test? Nor would factory patties. But it’s the tastiest, toothiest and simplest burger \u2014 not to mention whole-food plant-based no-oil<\/a> vegan \u2014 to pop in a bun with all the fixin’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n