Banged together Pork Burgers

Usual story yet again with me on this one. People were coming round, didn’t want to let down the side by not making tea so quick rummage in the the freezer and cupboards and this was born.

I’d had a couple of ideas already for making pork burgers but as is the way with me it was all surplus to what I had in and around me so I improvised on a few things. I’d recently come across a recipe for meatballs that toasted and grounded seeds so with this being a similar concept to meatballs thought id chuck that in for good measure too.

Here’s what I used:

1 tablespoon of cumin seeds
1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1 onion (diced)
800g of pork mince
4 slices of bread (blitzed into breadcrumbs)
Slash of milk
1 egg
Handful of flat leaf parsley (roughly chopped)
200g of butter (frozen)
Good pinch of S and P

Firstly in a dry pan, toast the spices on a medium heat until you can smell them. All your doing is releasing the oils of the seeds. Place them in a pestle and mortar and grind away!!!!

Right, next (might as well use same pan, save washing up,) heat a pan with a splash of olive oil and fry the onions till soft and translucent. Add in the spice mix created in the pestle and mortar and fry for another minute or so. Set aside to cool slightly.

Next is to soak the breadcrumbs in milk. Just enough to cover the breadcrumbs but not enough as to drown them. I’d give you a mega clever reason as to why were using milk but I can’t. I’d seen it somewhere recently and you never know if it works till you try it out so why the hell not. Trust me it was amazing!!In a separate bowl (best make it a large mixing bowl, will make it easier to mix,) chuck in the pork mince, cooled onion mix, egg, parsley and milk soaked breadcrumbs.

Give it a good mix up and get stuck in with your hands. No need for spoons, yet more washing up!! Once thoroughly combined, take the butter and grate it into the mix. Now if I had lard in the fridge I’d have used that because its pork fat. Because I didn’t and needed some sort of fat I just thought of butter. Why not. In the famous words of Barefoot Contessa “Everything tastes better with butter”.

Give it all a gentle mix up being careful not to break the butter up to much and chill in the fridge for a bit, an hour should do it. When your ready to cook, either heat a cast iron griddle plan on medium or a frying pan if you don’t have one and cook until cooked through. Simple. I served mine with blackened cajun spiced sweet potato fries and a burger bun with all the standard burger salad accompaniments. My friend wasn’t eating bread so she had a mini salad and just the burger and boom….