Gardenburger Original Patty - Veganized! (aka - super delicious mushroom burger)

With a homemade burger bun!

The flavour in this patty is so good I like to keep it simple with vegan mayo, lettuce, tomato and onion.

I think I say this whenever I blog a new burger, but, I have a new favourite burger!! What can I say? I love my burgers and truthfully I love them all on the blog here but this is a most welcome new addition ;-) Back in Canada in my vegetarian days I LOVED the Original Gardenburger patty, or "Money's Mushroom Burger" I think it was called at first. I had quite a few of them in my day and you couldn't buy them in England so was happy to find a copycat recipe online. 

I was still vegetarian at the time so had a go making them - I could see the taste was there but they were an absolute disaster! The mixture was very wet which you were to go about frying and they stuck to the pan like glue! I put the recipe away and never went back to it. Then, I was rifling through some old recipe printouts the other day and came across it. 

Now, what possessed me to not only try it again but veganize it too boot I'll never know but man am I glad I did. This tastes just like I remember the Gardenburger tasting like, so delicious and I got around the whole sticking to the pan thing! These cook up beautifully and while they are a little effort they freeze and reheat really well. So get in there and make up a huge bunch! Whether you know the original Gardenburger or not you'll be glad you did :-)

Gardenburger Patties  - makes 6 large patties or more if you want them smaller

1 Tbsp olive oil

450g mushrooms (1 pound)

120g diced onion (1 cup)

1/4 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 Tbsp bulgar wheat

50g oats (1/2 cup)

50g brown basmati rice, raw weight (2/3 cup cooked)

80g shredded mozza cheezly, super melting (3/4 cup)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

4 Tbsp cornstarch
vegetable oil to fry

First cook the brown basmati rice. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and stir in the rice. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. Check if tender then drain and rinse under hot water.

Place the bulgar in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover with cling film and let sit 5 minutes. Stir with a fork, check if tender then drain well.

Place the oats in a bowl with 100ml cold water and leave to soften for 10 minutes. Then place in a sieve and press the water out with the back of a spoon.

Place the rice, oats and bulgar into a large bowl:

Now heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the mushrooms and onion. Sprinkle over 1/4 tsp of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Fry until the liquid that comes out is reabsorbed, you want this mixture quite dry and the onion and mushrooms and cooked and slightly golden: (if it's starting to stick to the pan, that's good)

Tip mushroom mixture in with the grains and add the shredded cheezly, garlic powder and salt:

Give it all a good stir until well mixed and the cheezly melts from the heat of the mushroom mixture:

Now transfer the mixture to a food processor and pulse it about 8 - 10 times until it is all finely chopped but not pureed, you want a coarse texture here:

Tip it all back into a large bowl and stir in the cornflour:

and stir it up well, the mixture will be quite wet:

Now, this is where I changed the instructions. Original recipe had you frying these first then baking them but whenever I tried that the really wet mixture just stuck to the pan like glue no matter how much oil I used. I then thought- of course, bake them first then fry once they can hold their shape. D'oh! facepalm. Should have thought of that first!! Works perfectly.

Preheat the oven to 150C (fan if you have it) that's about 300F, quite a low tempurature. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and lightly grease it. Take a 1/2 cup scoop, or 1/3 if you want smaller burgers and fill up the scoop:

Scrape the mixture out of the scoop onto the baking sheet then with a fork shape into a burger patty:

Repeat until all the mixture is used up: (I'm doing a half recipe here, so just 3)

Place in the preheated oven and cook for 15 minutes, they will now be firm enough to hold their shape and be able to flip:

Place back in the oven and cook the other side for another 15 minutes. Then that's it, they are cooked. But yeah, they don't look great do they? Pale and aneamic looking isn't the most appetizing. Take a non-stick frying pan and add some oil. I fried these individually and used 1 tsp vegetable oil per burger. Fry on high heat just until golden and crispy on both sides. They are already cooked, you just want to colour and crisp them up:

That's it! Super yummy vegan mushroom burgers just waiting for a nice homemade bun maybe?

Note: If you are going to freeze these, and they freeze really well, after frying place them on a cooling rack lined with baking paper. Leave to cool for not more than an hour then wrap in cling film and freeze. You can reheat these various ways: fry from frozen, oven grill from frozen, microwave a couple minutes a side, or you can defrost first in the fridge then fry/grill/microwave. Just ensure they are piping hot throughout.

Nutritional Information: per large patty (making 6) after frying
Calories: 213
Fat: 11.4g
Sat Fat: 3.0g
Protein: 5.8g
Fibre: 3.0g
Carbs: 24g
Sugar: 2.4g
Sodium: 402 mg

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