Lentils and Walnuts and Burgers- Oh My!

That’s right! I made my own burgers! And the sauce! What up?! These adorable little sliders (they don’t have to be sliders, but I couldn’t resist those cute little hamburger buns when I saw them at Trader Joe’s) are yummy little veggie patties that I devoured with some cheddar cheese and tomatoes as well as a sauce that Moosewood recommended. In addition to the lentils and walnuts, the burgers have mushrooms and onion. There is optional spinach (which I didn’t add) as well as spices.

            The sauce is called “Faux Aioli”. Now, I don’t have quite enough working knowledge of real aioli to know the difference. I feel like it’s one of those things that restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory puts in their dish descriptions in order to sound fancier. Based on taste, I would describe it as garlic mayonnaise and delicious. Anyway, real aioli apparently has oil and eggs in it, whereas this recipe substitutes out those for something called silken tofu. I made an entire special trip to Whole Foods to find it. It comes in normal tofu type packages, but looks more like yogurt. The package has a picture of a smoothie on it, but I don’t think I’ve quite reached a high enough hippie level to actually eat a tofu smoothie.

            The biggest problem with any type of veggie burger is that as soon as you touch it, it falls to pieces. Making them as sliders ended up being kind of an advantage because there’s less to hold on to and you don’t have to eat the whole thing with a fork. Moosewood says that you can either fry the patties in a bit of oil or broil them. I chose broiling, but you’re supposed to flip them halfway through, which made all but one collapse. Maybe if the lentils had been cooked longer (into full mushy submission) the patties would’ve held together better. I don’t think frying them would’ve made much a difference, but maybe. The pieces also got a bit burned in the oven, which dried them out. The aioli helped a lot though and the bigger pieces were moist and delicious.

            I would also recommend cooking the lentils in broth rather than water, just to add a bit more flavor. The burgers taste great with all the fixings, but by themselves, they’re a bit plain. I think the broth would kick it all up a notch. This meal was a great way to start off my week and hit double digits on the recipe counter! 11 meals completed!

UPDATE: So I tried frying some of the leftover patties in oil instead of broiling them and they actually fell apart even more. So much so that I gave up on eating them as patties and instead made a sort of “veggie scramble” thing. I put the tomatoes, cheese, and aioli on top and ate the slider bun as just bread. It was still really good and easier to eat. Also, the vegetables didn’t get dried out and crunchy like they did when I broiled the patties.