Saturday, March 13, 2010

Burgers with Sneaky Greens


These burgers are a simple and delicious way to "sneak" a few veggies into a meal. This recipe can be found in the community cookbook I just completed in partnership with Cityseed and the CT Department of Public Health: New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven. My kids are pretty good about eating vegetables, but I do like to sneak a few extra into some of our food so that they will eat a wider variety of vegetables, especially leafy greens which are full of fabulous vitamins. I love these burgers, and am happy to get a few more greens into my meal as well.

For this meal I made lamb burgers and used lacinata or "dinosaur" kale. The prep is simple, and all you need to do is sear them well in a very hot heavy bottomed pan or grill, and serve them up with any number of sides. We had sweet potatoes and slices of red pepper with ours for a quick dinner.

Burgers with Sneaky Greens
from New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven
1 pound Ground beef, lamb, or turkey
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 egg (you can use 2 if you want more binding)
1/2 cup bread crumbs or flour
1 cup finely chopped kale (or collards or spinach)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 pinch pepper (to taste)

1.In a medium bowl, gently combine all ingredients together with your hands, and form into 6-8 patties.
2.cook in a hot heavy-bottomed frying pan with a small amount of oil. when the first side is nicely browned and the edges are starting to cook, flip burgers and cook for 1 or 2 minutes more.

These burgers are great with the usual fixings, or you can try caramelized onions, spicy mustard and greens.

3 comments:

  1. These were a big hit last night. For whatever reason (maybe because I told him how much your boy likes them) my boy completely ignored the fact that the chopped spinach (grabbed the wrong leafy green at the store, but it worked well) that he would normally shun was entirely visible. He didn’t even ask what it was, he just ate a whole burger and then asked for seconds. I have to admit, they were far tastier than I thought they would be based on the ingredients list (I resisted adding a pinch of cumin or sundried tomatoes or Dijon…) Yum! These will be added to regular rotation.

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  2. dinosaur burgers! did them with turkey and used green onions and some grated carrots too. One kid gobbled, one kid picked, and I used leftovers for a kind of hash this morning with rice and a fried egg. Tagan's kitchen strikes again! Thank you!

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