PLEEF™-BURGER

I am very excited to share my pleef™-burger recipe with you today.

It looks like beef but is 100% plant-based:

= pl (b) eef

The Main Ingredients are Brown Rice and Beetroot

You might wonder why I am so excited to finally share this recipe. It took me weeks to get the consistency right and work out how to fry them without falling apart: due to not having any fats in them, or sticky eggs etc there are a few tricks to get them right.

One of the major trick is that you have to be very accurate with the amounts of the ingredients: too much wetness in the patty and they dissolve. So measuring by cup is not working, due to the different levels of intensity you can stuff the cup, loosely or dense etc. Weighing the ingredients and making dozens of them to test what works best, was the only way.

I love the earthy flavour of beetroot and the colour makes it almost look like raw beef mince. You can play with different vegetables of course, I tried using canned lentils (strained well) instead of beetroot and it worked well.

If you come up with a really good mix of veggies without beetroot let me know, I am keen to test different versions.

I enjoy them most with a sauce mixed with veganaise and shiracha, or dijon mustard and shiracha. It is a little bit of a cheat as shiracha contains sugar, but it tastes incredible. And I will create a sugar free chilli sauce asap. Your sauce really does not need the sugar Mr. shiracha! Make one with stevia instead!

I eat these burgers often and if I do not have any gluten free rolls, I just use my gluten free bread.

I freeze them with a piece of grease proof paper in between them and defrost them in the microwave or gently re-heat them in a non stick frying pan.

Ingredients for the Patties

this makes approximately 10 patties

1 small beetroot, 95 gr after peeling
1 carrot 75 gr
frozen peas, defrosted, 70 gr
cooked brown rice, 420 gr
250 gr for blending and 170 gr unblended
gluten free bread crumbs, 55 gr
cumin, 3 tsp
chili powder, 1 tsp
paprika powder, 3 tsp
salt, 1/2 tsp
pepper, 1/2 tsp
tahini, 2 TB
sesame seeds, 1 TB
shiracha, 1 TB
light olive oil for frying

chopped beetroot

chopped veggies, rice and spices

Chopping | Frying | Blending

cook your brown rice, I usually cook about 2 cups of rice in 4 cups of water and keep leftovers for another meal.
peel your beetroot and carrot, chop them and weigh them correctly
fry the chopped beetroot and carrot in a medium hot pan with 1.5 -2 TB of water for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionaly, until slightly soft.
strain any water out and make sure the mix is dry
defrost peas and weigh them
add cooked veggies, spices and 250 gr of the cooked rice to the blender and pulse until fairly smooth but still with rough bits visible. You don't want a smooth paste.

Mix Red and White

mix the blended ingredients with 170 gr cooked brown rice and 55 gr gluten-free breadcrumbs, I use my hands...
you can make breadcrumbs by toasting gf bread, removing the crust, chopping it into bite size pieces, drying them in a pre-heated oven (100 degrees celcius) for 30 minutes and then blending the dry and cooled pieces in a food processor until they turn to crumbs.

Form Patties

this is best done with wet hands.
I just dip my hands into a bowl of water after each patty and shake off the excess water.
divide the paste into 10 balls and shape the patties.
you can be creative here and mix sesame seeds with breadcrumbs and dip the patties into the mix to cover them.
set the patties aside to be fried in a pre-heated non stick frying pan.

Frying

the trick here is to not over crowd the pan and have the pan fairly hot.
I use a maximum of 3 patties per frying session in a large pan.
you need a very flat and wide wooden flipper to easily get underneath the entire patty for turning it. (do not use a fork)
I fry them in an even mix of extra virgin olive oil and extra virgin coconut oil. I am sure light olive oil would work too.
since the ingredients are cooked already we only need to give the outside a bit of a crust and heat the patty all the way through.
I achieve that by frying them in a hot pan for 2 minutes on each side and turning them very gently.
once you get a feel for timing, you will realise that flipping them more than once is not a good idea. These patties do not hold together like beef does and they prefer to only be flipped once.

PLEEF™ - PATTY!

when I first opened the patty and saw how much it looked like beef it made me laugh!
the rice even resembles chopped onions.
this patty just had to be named PLEEF™

Assembly

use a gluten-free bread roll (recipe on the blog soon)
or use gf bread
make a sauce by mixing 1 TB veganaise with 1/2 TB shiracha or your preferred chilli sauce, best to use would be a sugar free one. You could also try 1 TB dijon mustard with 1/2 TB shiracha or any vegan, gf and sugar free sauce of your choice.
I like to use lettuce, fresh tomato, pickled cucumber and avocado when avaialble.

Lots of Sauce

I like a lot of sauce here and I am not holding back. I often double the quantity and use 2- 3 TB of sauce per burger.
you could also use some mustard on the bottom half of the roll and the veganaise/shiracha sauce on top. YUM!