Passover Burgers (Vegan Option)

Tonight's Passover dinner was based entirely on my friend Tera the Awkward Chef's legendary black bean burgers.  I modified the recipe a bit to fit my kitchen stock, and off we went.  Watch the video below for Tera's recipe.

Yeilds: 7-9 burgers

Ingredients (that I used):

• 1 can of kidney beans
• Seasonings at your own discretion (I opted for my favorite - Italian seasoning - and chili powder)
• 1/3 yellow onion, diced
• 1 green jalepeño pepper, diced (leave the seeds in this time)
• 5-6 parsley stems, diced (I'm using up all of my leftovers from my Seder).
• 2 pieces of Manischewitz Matzos
• Red pepper paste
• Tomato juice

Procedure

1. Mash the beans in a large bowl.  This takes a while, so you may want to put on a TV show while you're doing it.
2. Slowly add your spices, vegetables, and herbs.  Stir well.
3. Instead of bread crumbs (as Tera prescribes), crush up the Matzo (I just used a knife to crunch it up), and mix it into the beans.
4. Add the red pepper paste and tomato juice to even out the consistency, until it is ever so slightly sticky.
5. Heat some oil on the stove.  Like Tera says, you want a high smoke point oil, so I used soy bean oil.
6. Add your patties when the oil is hot enough to make them sizzle on impact.  Try to only flip them once.  As there is no egg in this mixture, they don't hold together quite as well.  A little char is definitely okay.

7. Serve warm.  I, not being vegan, opted to add some pepper jack cheese and ketchup to mine.  Buns aren't kosher for Passover, so I opted to eat it just like that, but I contemplated serving it on a piece of Matzo.  Let me know if you try it that way.

As a side, I made a Curry Rice Pilaf (as adapted from this recipe), which turned out pretty well, but I think my oil was too hot.  If I made it again, I'd do it before the burgers and just reheat it if necessary.  It's pretty simple:

Serves: 3-4 people

Ingredients:

• 1c white rice
• 1.5c water
• Curry powder, ginger powder, Italian seasoning (I, unfortunately, rarely measure.  I put enough of these things in that I could no longer see the rice below them.
• 1/3 yellow onion, diced
• 1/3c slivered almonds

Procedure:

1. Put the rice, water, spices, and half of your onion into a rice cooker and turn it on (yes, I'm lazy, but it works).  Stir occasionally to get the spices worked all the way through it.
2. Sautee the other half of the onion and the almonds.
3. When the rice cooker is done, mix the sautee in.

Tada!  Easy-breezy, and delicious.  Enjoy!

This dinner was just as happy to see me as I was to see it.

Let me know if you try this out, along with what you think of it!