Green burger bento.

I went with the prettiest bento box today, and then as I was almost done packing it I discovered that the crackers didn’t fit.. Hence the crushed crackers that go along with those blueberries and the Vache qui rit cheese.

In the main compartment, there’s the last remaining green burger, carrot sticks and some rice shaped with my most recent onigiri molds. Yum!

Green burgers.

Just Bento is one of my favorite food blogs, and I really like Maki’s ideas for neat things to put in a bento (which can of course also be had for dinner etc). I have previously featured her mini tuna tofu miso burgers, which I really liked. This time I decided to try one of her vegan burger recipes, for poppyseed-encrusted green pea mini-burgers.

I had read the recipe before, but I did not have it at hand when I was cooking, so I made a play-it-by-ear/improvised version. It was a very successful adaptation, and judging by some of the comments to the original recipe I dare say it may even be an improvement. My burgers held together perfectly, and showed no sign of falling apart. Maki notes that hers were quite fragile. I attribute this to my addition of a “flax egg” as binder (which should also up the fiber and protein content a bit!)

So what did I do differently from Maki’s original recipe?

• I used a mix of green peas and edamame. This tasted good, but I warn you, edamame is much more difficult to mash by hand. Actually it’s almost impossible. So it ended up being mushy peas with edamame bits..
• I used lots of chopped fresh basil in place of the rosemary and I omitted the olives (didn’t have any). I really like the combination of peas and basil.
• I used pumpkin seed butter instead of tahini (I am hooked on the stuff, and my latest jar of tahini seems to be rancid)
• I added the aforementioned “flax egg” (1 tbsp flax meal [heaped in this case] plus 3 tbsp water, let sit until gooey)
• I may have added a little more rice flour than what was called for, didn’t measure, which could also account for the firmer texture
• I used a mix of poppy seeds and sesame seeds for the crust, and I did not have onion and garlic flakes.

I must say that, while they were a bit messy to make, these were really excellent!