tofu and mushroom burger – meatless but not tasteless

Little Tina knows everything about burger, she knows how to flip it on grill, how to build the burger and what sauces are used to dress it up. She had it for the umpteenth time at Macdonald, KFC, Burger king and off course on friend’s birthday parties, picnic lunches and so on. Her mom tries hard to imitate those greasy burgers at home but failed miserably, Tina is not happy with her mom’s experiments and she does not understand also why her mom keep trying it  at home when she can have it from the local fast food centre. One day Tina happily announced that she can now flip 12 burger patties at a time, with different specifications of rare, medium and well and can dress it up in time so that she can earn more points to progress at higher level. We were shocked and surprised, we had no idea what she was talking about until we found it in her computer, a cooking game for girls : papa’s burgeria.

pic courtsey: stock photo

And Tina is not alone in this burger mania, there are many kids and toddlers like her who always craves for burger and are so devout burger fan that they wont accept anything lesser than that. This craziness drives a young mother to sue the big Mac with golden arch because her toddlers always wants the happy meal at Mac which promises the shrek collectibles too. Now beat this !!!

But why blame the kids only, we adults are equally responsible for this, because we introduced it to them, knowing it fully well that what goes inside those fat lumps of processed meats, laden with chemicals for longer shelf life and when these greasy meat patties with all its crunchy -ness and juicy -ness gets a veil of molten cheese and sandwiched between onions, juicy tomatoes and crunchy lettuce and dressed up with mustard, mayo and ketchup which hypnotised our taste buds, in all adoration we say then ahh….hmmmmm…..yummm…….wow….so juicy… so , so filling and so crunchy, it’s really wonderful.

This obsession with burger does not stopped at this, the burger fanatics goes on to build worlds biggest burgers with hundreds of pounds of meat. Remember, Adam Richman on TLC’s Man Vs Food where his team of 40 hungry people attacked a 190 pounds “absolutely ridiculous”  burger with 210 pounds of ground beef cooked in oven for 16 hours, the pattie and bottom bun together weigh alone 140 pounds and to make it more meatier monster they added another 10 pounds of assorted cheese, 15 pounds of mixed vegetables, 4 pounds of crispy bacon, 3 entire heads of lettuce and top it with 20 pound bun. For the first time on his show, man lost the battle against the food ! But wait ! here is another one, the worlds biggest burger arrived on this July 2 weighing around 777 pounds with 600 pounds of beef, 30 pounds of lettuce, 12 pounds of pickles, 20 pounds of onion and 110 pounds of bun, clocking at 1,375,000 calories !!!!!! 

world's biggest burger @ 777 pound

If you find this gross enough, unappetising, un healthiest one and sheer wastage of food, then read below for a healthy and home cooked non greasy  veg burger.

Veg burgers need not to be always boring with potatoes and chickpeas, tofu and mushroom has that inherent qualities to make a savory veg burger and that too on low calories.

Ingredients:

Hamburger buns : 4 medium

For pattie:

Tofu (extra firm) : 200 gm for making 4 burgers
Mushroom (chopped): 1 cup
Onion (sweet vidalia) : 1 chopped
Ginger and garlic chopped : 1 tbsp
Chilli Soy sauce : 1 tsp
Sour cream : 1 tsp
Salt and pepper to taste

Oil for shallow frying the patties

For binding:

wheat flour / corn meal : 2 tbsp
Mashed potatoes : 1 medium

Bread crumbs : 4-5 tbsp

Toppings:
Lettuce , onion rings, pickled cucumbers, tomato slices, cheddar cheese slices, mustard sauce, ketchup and mayonnaise.

Making the pattie: In a mixing bowl, add the finely chopped onions, ginger-garlic, chopped mushrooms, crumbled tofu, chilli soy sauce, sour cream and season it well with salt and pepper. Mashed it really well.

Next add the binders : wheat flour or cornmeal, and mashed potatoes. Mixed and mashed together really well untill you can form and shape it as patties.

Roll each of the patties in bread crumbs and shallow fry in a non stick pan until both the sides becomes little crisper and browned. It will take almost 10 minutes on each side.

Building the burger:

This is the most interesting part and there are volumes of theories written on why the burger is build that way. The kitchn has shown a detail illustration of building a burger and has also explained at depth. 

The usual way of building the burger.

• Apply the mustard on the bottom bun.
• If you are using the pickles, then place it now
• Place the hot patties on the pickled layer.
• Cover it with a slice of cheddar or any other cheese
•  Top it with thick  slices of juicy tomatoes
• Spread some lettuce over it.
• Place a ring of onion and top it with mayonnaise and the top bun.

No matter how you build the burger, with your favourite toppings and condiments, you will fall in love with this.

Verdict: If you are thinking that the patties will be crunchy and crispy and hard, no tofu and mushrooms don’t have those traits, only meat patties can behave like that, these veggies are rather soft and humble, great on taste and definitely low on calorimeter. This is perfect for light sunday brunches and we have served it along with spicy, hot chicken wings (recipe will be following soon) .

This humble tofu and mushroom burger is going to the event: Sandwich mela  and fast food not fat food. started by priya now serving. and mom chef’s DIO : mushroom and onion , started by Vardhini.

Have a happy weekend

If you like this tofu burger then please consider sharing it and do not forget to send me your feedbacks.