White Bean and Walnut Patties

When I first browsed through this book, I was excited to see several recipes for veggie burgers.  I have been trying to move away from products made from highly processed soy isolates, but I find I am not overly fond of burgers that don't have any chew, and won't hold together.  I was even more excited when I saw that many of the burger recipes here included vital wheat gluten as part of the mixture, which looked to me would add both chew and stick-ability.  So, the second recipe I tried was the "White Bean and Walnut Patties", page 122.  Because the recipe gave the option of baking the patties, I did not have to include the 2 tablespoons of oil required if I chose to fry them.  I baked them on a non-stick cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, so no oil was required here either. 

For some reason, even after following the directions exactly, once I had blended all the ingredients, the mixture was too dry to hold together.  I ended up adding about 4-5 tablespoons water to the blended ingredients to obtain the desired consistency.  Other than that, I did not have to alter any of the ingredients.  I did, however, make six burgers instead of the four suggested.  This is just a matter of personal taste, as I prefer my burgers a little thinner and flatter than most recipes suggest.

These burgers were so good!  They stuck together!  They had chew!  They had outstanding flavor!  The sage added a depth of flavor I especially enjoyed. The recipe suggests serving these burgers on sandwich bread with mustard, lettuce, and sliced tomatoes.  Which is what I did the next day - the first day, I served them as an entrée with mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans.  I liked them both ways, but thought they were especially good served as part of a hot entrée.