Homemade Chicken Burgers

Who loves a good burger?

I know we do. Especially a burger that is loaded with so many fillings that you can’t fit it all in your mouth and the sauce runs down your hands and chin.

The good thing about homemade burgers is that you can tailor them to suit your families dietary requirements, which today includes an increasing number of food allergies making take-out a no go, and they are super easy to make. You can use chicken or beef or fish or veggies combined with any number of herbs and spices at your disposal. Chicken is more affordable than any other meat variety (including Fish) in Geneva and so chicken was the ideal meat for today’s burgers.

Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s good for you…

We used skinless chicken breasts for our burgers instead of pre-minced meat because it is a lean cut of meat and although it will take you longer to prepare the meat for use, you will be guaranteed a healthier meal.  In fact, many would regard chicken breast as the benchmark for lean meat.  What you may not know is that chicken also is packed with a broad range of vitamins and minerals is a great source of protein, containing all the essential amino acids needed to repair the body and support a healthy immune system. Protein also fills you up, so it will stop you over eating and keep you fuller for longer, increasing energy and encouraging weight loss.

Great news! Now for the recipe.

For the patties you will need…

• 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 175g/6oz each), cubed **A good guide is 1 chicken fillet per person**
• 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
• small piece fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp fresh coriander, plus a few sprigs to garnish
• 1 green chilli, seeded and roughly chopped
• a handful of breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Step 1: Toss the chicken, garlic, ginger, onion, coriander, chilli and breadcrumbs into a food processor and season well. Blitz until the chicken is finely ground and everything is well mixed. Use your hands to shape six small cakes (or whatever size you want really). If you don’t have a food processor you will need to finely dice all the ingredients and it will still work perfectly well.

Step 2: Heat the oil in a frying pan, then fry the cakes over a medium heat for about 6-8 minutes, turning once.

Step 3: Make a burger!

Chicken Burger

As you can see in the picture, thick slices of country bread lightly toasted were used instead of hamburger buns, then I added mayonaise, sweet chilli sauce, cheese, tomatoes, beetroot, fried egg and lettuce. Oh yeah, and the chicken burger of course!

Bon appetit!

Marrakech and a Chicken Tagine

The Love Affair

We celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary in January with a weekend trip to Marrakech in Morocco. We stayed in the Medina (old town) in a quaint little Riad and experienced our first tagine of the weekend on our very first night at the Riad; a traditional Lamb and Apricot Tagine. The Lamb was so juicy and so very tender, it really was a ‘melt in your mouth’ experience, and the apricots gave the dish a lovely sweetness. I knew, even before we left Geneva, that I wanted to come home with a tagine of my own but it was made even more certain in my mind after eating that Lamb Tagine. We had booked in for a full day cooking class and here we made, amongst other things, a Chicken and Preserved Lemon Tagine and a Rabbit and Quince Tagine in an outdoor kitchen over a manually fanned flame. Both of these Tagines are traditional flavour combinations and can be found on the menu of any restaurant in Marrakech. The Rabbit Tagine had a lot more flavour than the Chicken Tagine but they were both delicious and we had learned so great cooking techniques. Over lunch I bombarded our cook with one million and one questions about ceramic tagines, what to look for, what size to buy, how much I should spend, which stall to buy from etc, and finished the day back in the markets ready to haggle.

The Barter

The best part of our trip to Marrakech was the purchase of my tagine. The cook from our cooking class had informed me that I should spend no more than 50 dirham for a medium sized tagine (approximately 4 person) and to stick to the plain varnished ceramic tagines as these are the only appropriate ones for cooking with (the paint from the decorated tagines can be toxic when heated). We were in the Jamaa el Fna, the hotspot for shopping and bartering, and every second stall seemed to be selling tagines. I headed to the first one I saw, found a tagine that I liked and asked the gentleman manning the stand how much it cost. His reply was astounding; 400 dirham! I almost laughed out loud, but promptly told him I would pay no more than 50 dirham. In our previous two days of bartering we had aimed at 50% of the original price stated and so to counter the offer of 400 dirham with only 50 dirham seemed like lunacy. And to this gentleman it was. He waved us off and so we headed to the next shop where I again found a tagine that I liked and again asked the gentleman manning the shop how much it would cost. This time it was 200 dirham. So once again I countered with 50 dirham and told the man I would pay no more. I was unwilling to budge. I should be able to pay what the locals pay, I thought. We started to walk away to the next shop when the shop keeper ran out and offered us 100 dirham. Another 10 steps down the alley and he yelled out 50 dirham. Success!!