Mexican Veggie Burgers

Be prepared to see a lot more veggie recipes coming up. Now I'm not turning vegetarian or vegan or anything- no way, but after my weekend away in London, I went to this cool place, Neil's Yard, for breakfast and found there were a lot more restaurants/cafes in the area. So I had a wonder around while I waited for my Tahini Banana Porridge to be made and found this awesome little cafe, which I soon realised was vegan!

So me being me I thought why not,, i'm in London, won't find anything like it in Edinburgh anyway so let's go for it. And wow the food was good. I was pleasantly surprised. But living in Scotland, it wouldn't be easy for me to go there regularly so i've set it my challenge to try and recreate their food as good as I can, and well... here's one of them with my Mexican twist!

Mexican Veggie Burgers

Serves: 4 burgers

Ingredients

For the Burgers

• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained thoroughly

• 1 medium onion, finely diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 red chilli, minced

• 2 tsp Mexican oregano

• mixed dried Mexican chillies, optional

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• juice of one lime

• a handful of coriander, including stalks

• 1/2c crushed oatcakes, tortilla chips, breadcrumbs

• 1 tsp coconut sugar ( or any other type of sweetener )

• black pepper

To serve

• Guacamole

• thick greek yoghurt or creme frâiche

• salsa *

• rocket

• pickled onions

• jalapenos

• buns or wholemeal thins

• sweet potato, cut into chunky strips, optional for sweet potato fries, but not really!

* I made my own by simply chopping up some tomatoes and mixing them with minced garlic, tomato puree, ground chilli powder and paprika

Method

- Preheat the grill to a medium setting. This cooks the sweet potato faster and crispens them up more. I have been to so many places where they serve soggy versions and it's the worst and most annoying thing!

- Add some sesame oil to a pan. once hot add the onions and stir. cover and stir every so often until softened. Stir in the garlic, chilli, dried chillies and oregano. Stir and cook until all their aromas are released. Remove from the heat.

- Blend the chickpeas in a food processor and blitz, scraping down the sides every so often. Blitz until a paste has formed before adding in the rest of the ingredients.

- Once everything is evenly combined, use your hands to divide the mixture into 4 even balls then flatten with your palms to form 4 burgers.

- Check on the sweet potato to see if they're crispy and puffy on the outside and soft on the inside by gently squeezing them.

- Line a tray with tin foil and place the sweet potato on top.

- Line another tray with tin foil and place the burgers on top. Pop them in the oven to cook for 25 minutes, flipping them carefully halfway through, alongside the sweet potato.

- You can fry the burgers lightly in oil after they're cooked to give them a nice colour.

- Serve the burgers in buns with a dollop of guacamole, salsa, yoghurt, jalapeños/pickled onion and rocket. Squash the other slice of bread on top, serve the sweet potato wedges alongside ( and with ketchup, of course ) and you're good to go!