Just because you turned vegetarian doesn’t mean that you have to turn your back on a lot of mouth-watering treats, such as burgers. These days, there are plenty of ways to replicate various meat products, including burger patties, using vegan ingredients. One very surprising ingredient for making faux meat is coconut meat.
Usually, making burger patties with meat involve the use of eggs. Since the goal is to make burger patties that are 100 percent perfect for a vegetarian like you, we will scrap them. What we will use, instead, is silken tofu!
There are many available substitutes for eggs that are perfect for vegans, and one of them is silken tofu. A single egg is equivalent to about 1/4 cup of silken tofu that is pureed. The vegetarian burger patty recipe below requires the use of 3/4 cup of pureed silken tofu in place of a total of 3 eggs.
When it comes to buying shredded coconut meat, you have a couple of choices. First, it is available at some supermarkets and from most Asian grocers. Second, you may simply make it from scratch — all you have to do is have whole coconut meat grated. If you want it finer, you may afterwards count on your food processor.
Once the various ingredients of vegetarian burger patties are mixed and formed, deep frying follows. Worry not because it’s not always that deep frying is bad for the health. It all depends on the cooking oil used.
According to experts, sunflower oil and extra light olive oil are two of the best vegetable oils for deep frying purposes. Other than the fact that they are absolutely free of cholesterol, the said vegetable oils have high smoke points. This means that it will take a lot of heat before sunflower oil and extra light olive oil burns.
Definitely, opting for a high smoke point vegetable oil will keep your vegetarian masterpiece from having a burnt taste. In case any of the said vegetable oils are not available, you may also go for canola oil or safflower oil.
Now it’s time for us to check out the simple recipe:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of shredded coconut meat
- 3/4 cup of silken tofu (pureed)
- 5 to 6 cloves of garlic (minced)
- 1 medium-sized onion (finely chopped)
- 1 small-sized red bell pepper (deseeded and minced)
- 5 tablespoons of bread crumbs
- 5 tablespoons of cornstarch
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons of Chinese celery (minced)
- 2 tablespoons of onion spring (minced)
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
Directions:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine shredded coconut meat, garlic, onion, onion spring, red bell pepper, Chinese celery, ground black pepper and salt. Mix very well with a wooden spoon.
- Add into the mixture the pureed silken tofu and soy sauce. Mix very well once more.
- Little by little while continuously mixing the ingredients, add the bread crumbs and corn starch. Sometimes it’s more convenient to use your clean hands in combining the ingredients.
- Roll the mixture into 6 balls, and then flatten with the palm of your hand. You can make your vegetarian burger patties larger or smaller, or thinner or thicker — it all depends on your preference.
- In a frying pan, use medium heat to heat about 2 cups sunflower oil, extra light olive oil, canola oil or safflower oil — which ever vegetable oil with a high smoke point that you currently have in your kitchen.
- Once the cooking oil is hot, start frying those vegetarian burger patties you just formed. You know that they are already well-cooked when they have this delectable deep-brown color — and of course your entire kitchen is filled with their yummy smell!
- Place the cooked vegetarian burger patties on a few pieces of kitchen towel to get rid of excess oil. Afterwards, serve them as you like.
