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Sunday night dinner - Chickpea Basil burgers

Whoever said TV dinners cannot be healthy? These burgers are perfect TV food to pile on a plate and curl up on the couch watching your favourite soap or movie. This recipe is another discovery in my quest for high protein vegetarian recipes. The food and dining section of NYTimes, Guardian, Washingt
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Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 - 3/4 Cup chickpeas water dried - soaked in lots of overnight
  • 1/2 cup potato mashed
  • 1/3 cup basil chopped leaves or any other herbs / greens
  • 1 tsp pepper ground
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
  • Besan gram flour / if required
  • 2 tsps olive oil vegetable oil or
To assemble
  • Bread of your choice (6 burger buns or 12 slices of bread)
  • tomatoes cucumber lettuce leaves Sliced , , washed and dried
  • 6 cheese slices (optional)
  • Ketchup mustard ,

Method
 

  1. Pressure cook the chickpeas with 2 cups water for 8 minutes or so. (After 3 whistles, lower the flame and keep on sim for 7-8 minutes).
  2. Drain and mash with a heavy mortar or till coarsely mashed in a food processor.
  3. In a large bowl, mix mashed chickpeas, potatoes, chopped basil, pepper, salt, red chilli powder.
  4. Sprinkle gram flour or bread crumbs if the mixture is too wet.
  5. Divide this into six balls, flatten into thick patties and place on a lightly greased non-stick tava / skillet on a medium flame. Grill each side for 5-7 minutes, till golden brown using little olive oil.
  6. Remove and keep aside.

Notes

Lightly toast the bread for the burger on the same hot skillet. Apply mustard on both slices. Place the cucumber and tomato slices, cheese slice and place the hot burger on the top. Cover with more salad if you like and a slice of bread or the other half of burger bun.
Eat / serve immediately.
Note
If you mash the chickpeas in the food processor, make sure you use the 'pulse' function so it does not turn into a paste, after which it will be tough to shape them into burgers.
You can prepare these upto the 'shaping into patties' stage and freeze them keeping a layer of cling film / butter paper in between and directly grill them on the pan for a weekday dinner.