Mushroomburgers (John)

So, I’ve been told that I have to give some sort of recipe for this familial greeting. And I’ve been told that my recipe needs some story that is more detailed than: I was hungry. I made food. Which is sorta what happened. So over the weekend at summer camp I was invited to a “Bring Your own Meat” barbeque at which I was one of the few vegetarians. So the lot of us acquired for ourselves some store bought mushroom burgers, which were quite awesome. When I got home from camp I half-heartedly decided to search the Internet for a recipe for making my own mushroom burgers. I eventually found one but had no real motivation to use it until Meher went to India, leaving me alone with Tim’s cooking. I immediately became much more invested in the process of making my own food. So without further ado, here is my version of the Internet recipe:

Mushroom Burgers

Ingredients:
4 cups of finely chopped Portobello mushrooms
2 cups of finely chopped white mushrooms
2 red onions
4 cloves of garlic
6 tbsp Olive oil
Half a beer
5 stalks of green onions, chopped
4-5 eggs
2 cups of grated mozzarella cheese
2 cups bread crumbs (more if needed)
Salt
Pepper
Cooking oil for frying the patties

Okay, in order to make theses mushroom burgers, you need to mince all of your mushrooms, cut up your onions into thin slices and crush up the garlic. Start by sautéing the garlic in olive oil and before the garlic gets brown, add the onions. Keep frying the onions until they start getting a little softer and more translucent. This is when you add the mushrooms.

Depending on the size of your pan, you may want to add the mushrooms slowly, so as not to litter your stove top with tiny little bits of mushroom. (I figured this out on the fourth attempt at making this recipe, sorry Meher for the first three messes). Once the mushrooms have browned a bit, you can add in the half of your beer (for this recipe, a darker beer is probably preferred). Wait for the beer to evaporate and then let the mushrooms cook for about two minutes longer, then take them out of the frying pan and put them in whatever mixing bowl you have at your disposal. At this point you should put the bowl in a fridge or freezer, so you don’t try to mix this stuff up and burn your hands.

While you are frying the stuff and waiting for the beer to dissolve you can fix up the rest of the ingredients of the burgers, and drink the rest of the beer. Chop up the green onions into thin slices and grate up the mozzarella cheese. Put the green onions, mozzarella cheese and bread crumbs into the mixing bowl with the now chilled fried mushrooms and then crack the eggs into the concoction. Now comes the fun part.

Mix together all of the ingredients. I advise using one’s hands, as this is fun and probably more effective than any other method. Once you get it all mixed up, add some salt and pepper, and then you can start forming out the patties. Once you have rolled out all your patties, you can cook them however you cook burgers. You can also freeze the patties for later enjoyment.

In addition to this recipe you can experiment with adding barbeque sauce to the mix, using different types of cheese and just about anything you can think of, I’m always experimenting so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

PS from Meher: Yes, experiment a lot and don't give up. The burgers are really great but can be a bit dry if you add a lot of bread crumbs. On the other hand, they don't hold together well if you don't add enough bread crumbs. So, getting this part right is important. The patties freeze really well.

• more hair tales, work stories, performances, etc. (2008)
• travels, perfomances, and so on (2007)
• hairy (2006)
• reunion (2006)
• Adam's sojourn in Brasil and Quebec (2006)
• peripatetic (2005)
• the trip (2005, but with pictures now, and more text)
• our old site (2006 and earlier)