My big fat greek style burger

Once upon a time there was an amazing little burger place called Burgerlicious on King St, Newtown. They made seriously tasty burgers with good quality ingredients. One dark day they sold out. The lovely waitress with the same name as me disappeared. They brought in fluorescent lighting. All of the good ingredients left in protest. I thought my short-lived fling with burgers was over, until a certain someone taught me how to fend for myself with this recipe. Menfolk, take note: the way to a lady's heart is through her stomach.

The ingredients
..................................................................
500g lamb mince (buy the best quality lean meat that you can afford)
1 spanish onion, diced finely
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 heaped tablespoon of both mayonnaise (whole egg variety, preferably) and seeded mustard
a couple of shakes of garam marsala, ground cumin and cayenne pepper
a handful of fresh mint, chopped (optional)
..................................................................
1 red capsicum
2 zucchini
1 eggplant
haloumi
rocket (baby spinach also works)
wholemeal buns (you could use any kind of bread - or none at all if that's your preference - but a bun is good for holding everything together whilst you eat it)
..................................................................

The how-to

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, or 160 degrees for fan-forced.

Mix all of the ingredients from the first section, using a large spoon, until just combined. To make sure that all of the ingredients, particularly the spices, are evenly distributed, knead and squeeze the mince mixture with your (clean and ring-free) hands.



You want the mixture to be quite sticky - you can always have your kitten come by and do a quality control inspection, Miss Molly (pictured above) is always obliging. Divide into six even pieces. Mould each of them into a palm-sized round, and don't flatten them completely. Pop them onto a grill tray (preferably a wire rack with a tray for catching the fat that will drip out underneath so that you don't make a mess of your oven) and set aside.

Slice the egglant into thin rounds and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Slice off the four sides of the capsicum, working around the core. Put them skin facing up onto a baking tray covered with baking paper close to the element of the oven and grill until the skin is charred and looks blistered (approx 5 min). Take out and let cool. The outer layer of the skin should come away easily. Discard this, slice the capsicum lengthways and set aside.

Slice the zucchini lengthways, into pieces a couple of millimetres thick. Rinse the eggplant, shake dry and then lay the eggplant and zucchini slices onto the same baking paper-lined tray that you used for the capsicum. Put the vegetables and the mince patties in to the oven, with the vegetable tray above the mince tray. The vegetables should take approximately 10 minutes and the lamb should take about 20 minutes. Turn the vegetables after 5 minutes and turn the patties after 10 minutes so everything cooks nicely on both sides.

Once the vegies and meat are cooked pull them out and let them rest a couple of minutes. Start to assemble your burger with some of the lovely grilled vegetables, a lamb pattie and some fresh rocket. Once everything else is ready, slice as many pieces of haloumi as you need - two per burger is about right - and fry in a pan heated with a little olive oil. You want it to be soft and golden brown on both sides. The haloumi should be left til last because it is best eaten whilst hot - it starts to harden as it cools after being cooked. The haloumi can go straight from the pan and onto the burgers.

This is lovely as is, the grilled vegies are really flavoursome and the lamb is quite juicy, but you can also add any kind of condiments that you like - mayonnaise, chutney, pesto, sauce - and then serve it up.



As you can see in the picture, this goes quite nicely with a cheeky drink or two...

P.S. Vegetarians, don't despair!

This is a good meal when you are catering for a group with a variety of food preferences. It is easy to replace the lamb patties with more of the grilled vegies and haloumi. Also, avocado, grilled mushroom and olives are good extras for the vegetarian version.