Sweet potato burger with griddled pineapple - not low cal!

Elsie_Brownraisin

Hi,

I got this recipe from the Vegetarian Society (UK) - it's a good one, which makes a change, as I find this website terrible for recipes (a 'recipe' for a quorn sausage sandwich, anyone?)

It's not low calorie, but not everyone is here to lose weight. Or you could have a lot of cals because you're like me, overweight, exercise a lot and prefer to eat most of your calories in the form of an evening meal. Without a bun, I got the salad and burger as 558 cals.

I did tweak it a bit, I didn't use any oil in the burger itself, just fry light for the onion and garlic. I then used oil to fry the burgers in. I hate it when croquettes/fishcakes etc don't have a crispy shell. So if you use the oil listed in the recipe or use it to fry them, that's another 150-200 cals added there too. Just using low-cal oil spray would make it less than 575 cals.

I added fresh mint and coriander and some lime juice to the salad and I didn't make the chilli salsa either, raw tomato puree and spring onions didn't sound good. I just plonked some harissa on top.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the Burgers:
4-6 tiger roll buns
600g sweet potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp ras-el-hanout
1 tsp rose harissa
100g breadcrumbs
50g almonds, coarsely chopped
100g pumpkin seeds, crushed
5 pineapple rings to coat gram flour

For the Simple Moroccan side salad:
250g cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 red onion finely sliced
2 tomatoes, chopped
100g finely sliced ready to eat apricots
100g watercress
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp cumin powder
Salt and pepper to taste

For the Relish:
3 birdseye chillies, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
½ lemon, juiced
1 tbsp tomato puree


Method

Preheat the oven to 220C. Cut the sweet potatoes in half and bake in their skins on an oil coated baking tray for 30 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking you can start on the burgers. When they are cooked scoop out the flesh and set aside.

Fry the onions in a little olive oil until soft then add the garlic and ras-el-hanout. Continue to fry for another 30 seconds.

Chop one of the pineapple rings into small cubes and put in a big bowl with the cooked sweet potato flesh, fried onions, rose harissa, breadcrumbs, almonds and pumpkin seeds. Season to taste.

Form the mixture into burgers (I put them in the fridge for an hour to firm up) . You can make one normal burger or two thin ones per bun. Coat them in the gram flour and shallow fry until golden on each side.

While the burgers are frying make the relish by mixing all the ingredients together. At this point also start to griddle the pineapple rings on each side.

Assemble the burgers by placing one burger in each bun, followed by the griddled pineapple then the relish. Add the second burger on top if using.

To make the salad: Place the chickpeas, onion, tomatoes, apricots and watercress into a serving bowl. Mix together the oil and cumin and pour over the salad. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.


http://recipes.vegsoc.org/recipe.aspx?cId=753