Divine veggie burger

What can I say about these burgers... except they are divine... Well they are vegetarian, but I bet that carnivores would love them too. These are the best vege-burgers that I have ever made, and probably they are the the best vege-burgers I have eaten. Usually the patties in vegetarian burgers are awful mush made of grated over-cooked vegetables without any flavor. These are not anything like that.

I personally like the roasted flavor of beets, perky lime juice and sweetness from the sweet potatoes, all mixed together. Parsley gives some earthiness to this burger, and that is the reason I really really love these. Instead of bun, you can serve these even using salad leaves, and they are still fabulous.

Veggie Burger
For 4 person
4 good quality burger bun per person
4 Beetroot-quinoa patties
Avokado sauce
Sweet potato fries
Parsley

Make patties, sauce and fries using the recipes below.
Grill nice color to bun and make sure they are warm.
Fill all ingredients and enjoy!

Beetroot-quinoa patties 
4 medium size beets, peeled and cut in half
2 tbsp canola oil
100 ml quinoa
1 onion
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tsp Sonnentor BBQ spice mix
1 red chili, finely chopped
salt & black pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 200 °C.
Peel beets and onion. Chop the onions finely. Cut beets in half and place them into a pan. Drizzle 1 tbsp oil over the beets and mix until oil covers all beets. Bake until soft (approx. 1 hour). Let them cool.
Cook the quinoa as instructed in box. Let it cool.
Heat the 1 tbsp oil over the medium heat. Add onions and cook until tender and fragrant. It is totally ok to caramelize them a bit.
Mix beets, quinoa, onion, garlic and all spices together and mix. Add egg and mix well. Shape to patties. Cook them over a medium heat until they are crisp on outside, flip and repeat. Be careful when flipping the patties, since they break very easily!

Avocado sauce 
1 ripe avocado
1 lime juice
salt
Mix lime juice and peeled avocado together, e.g. using hand mixer. Season with salt.

Sweet potato fries 
1 sweet potato
1 tsp corn starch (e.g. Maizena)
1 tbsp canola oil salt to taste

Preheat oven to 225°C and warm your baking tray in an oven.
Peel the sweet potato and cut it medium thickness. Not hugely thick cut and not shoestring. Cut all your fries into the same size so that they all cook at the same rate.
Soak fries in cold water for around an hour – a half a day for maximum crispiness! Dry them.
Dump sweet potatoes into the bag with the cornstarch. Then give sweet potatoes you drop in the cornstarch a good shake. Twist the top of the bag so it forms a balloon with some air inside and shake the fries around until they’re lightly coated with the cornstarch.
Put coated fries on a non-stick cookie sheet. Drizzle oil over the fries. Using your hands, make sure the fries are well coated.
Put the fries into oven and cook for 15 minutes. Check the fries after 15 minutes, flip them over and bake them another 10-15 minutes. The timing really depends on the size of your fry, the heat of your oven and how well your pan conducts heat. Season with salt.

Sushi or Kimbap? Which I made?

Sushi is very familiar to most of the people nowadays, and korean food starts to be. I have eaten sushi many times in Korea, but as many, I have eaten kimbap. And they are both so delicious there. Unfortunately I have never had a change to eat sushi, or anything, in Japan, but hopefully that will change soon. I like them both, and today I couldn't choose which I wanted more, so I made seaweed rolls inspired by both of them.

But what is difference between sushi and kimbap? They are both basically rolls of rice wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed.

The only rule for kimbap seems to be that it be some kind of rice wrapped in seaweed. The rice is usually steamed medium grain white rice, but it can also contain other types of rice.The rice is usually flavored with salt and sesame oil. The one rule for sushi rolls is that the rice itself is flavored with rice vinegar, salt and sugar. The term sushi itself refers to this vinegar-flavored rice. If the rice is not flavored with that vinegar mix, it's not considered to be sushi even if it's wrapped up in nori.

I made sushi rice but I wrapped very kimbapy ingredients in seaweed. So I really can't tell you which one I had...

Seaweed Rolls
for 2 persons
Sushi rice
2 sheets of gim (=nori)
1 small carrot pickled
1 thin omelette
5 cm piece cucumber cut in stripes
wasabi to taste

Place a sheet of gim on a bamboo mat with the shiny side down. Evenly spread half of the sushi rice over top of it, leaving about 2-3 cm uncovered on upper side of the gim.
Place wasabi, pickled carrot, omelette stripesand cucumber in the center of the rice.
Roll the mat (along with gim and rice) over the fillings.

***

Sushi Rice
250 g sushi rice
330 ml water
Seasoning
30 ml rice wine vineger
35 g sugar
5 g salt

Rinse the rice in a strainer or colander until the water runs clear, 3-4 times. Combine with water in a pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove heat and let it stay 25-30 minutes. Do not open the lid.
In a small saucepan, combine the rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool, then stir into the cooked rice slowly. Do not crush the rice but stir it very gently. Keep stirring and the rice will dry as it cools.
If you are not use rice immediately, let it stay in room temperature, covered with wet cloth.

Pickled carrots
1 small carrot
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
½ tbsp sugar
½ salt

Peel carrot and cut it "julienne".
Mix all other ingredients together. Stir until sgar and salt are totally dissolved. Add carrot sticks and let them marinade at least an hour.

Thin omelette
2 small eggs
salt

Crack eggs in a bowl and add salt. Beat it with fork.
Drizzle a few drops of oil on a heated pan. Wipe off the excess with a paper towel so only a thin sheen of oil remains. Turn down the heat to low and pour the egg mixture into the pan. Spread it into a large circle so it fills the pan.When the bottom of the egg is cooked, flip it over. Remove from the heat and let it cook slowly in the hot pan for about 5 minutes, with the ultimate goal of keeping the egg as yellow as possible, and not brown.
Cut it into 1 cm wide strips.

Lamb kebab

We got nice amount of different cuts of the lamb on Sunday and one package was ground lamb. First thing that came to my husbands mind was kebab, not the doner one, which is most popular kebab in Finland, but the skewer. Well, actions followed the words. Today we had great kebab-dinner.

I have noticed that kebab has many versions and many names; kebab, kabob, kefta, kofta... Anyhow, it is delicious everytime, -I think. Is it? What is your favourite style?

Kebab
For 2-3 person
350 g ground lamb
1 egg
1 onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove grated
100 ml fresh parsley chopped
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp ground coriander
Black pepper and salt to taste

In a bowl, combine the ground lamb with the egg, onion, garlic, parsley and spices.  Gently knead the meat to blend. Using lightly moistened hands, form the meat into 6 skewers. 
Grill the skewers, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, about 6 minutes. Or bake them in the oven 200 C, 20 minutes.

Tomato sauce
1 can (400 g) Mutti tomato polpa
1 red onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp tomato puree
1-2 tsp chili flakes
0,5 tbsp smoked paprika
0,5 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp oli
2 tsp sugar
200 ml water
Black pepper and salt to taste

Peel and chop the onion and garlics. Heat the oil in a pot over a medium heat. Add onions, garlics and some salt, and cook until onion is soft, few minutes. Add chili, paprikas and tomato puree, continue cooking few minutes. Add tomato polpa and water. Reduce heat and simmer about 20-30 minutes. Season.

Yoghurt-garlic sauce
250 ml thick natural yoghurt
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Mix all ingredients together and let it rest at least 2 hours to over night.

Serve the kebab:
Warm the bread (pita, naan, flatbread, wheat tortilla...). Top with fresh salad, 2 kebab skewers and both sauces. Enjoy!!

For the drink I would go easily with beer, like stout or porter. But for this, red wine is always right choice, and even better if it is jammy and lush.