Burger of the month: July

I used to design a new burger in my bistro every month. I just miss a bit of creative romping around, so I just decided to make a great burger for my blog every month. Of course, the recipe now looks quite complex with all the components, but they can all be prepared in advance if you want to start the day before or swap for purchased ingredients.

This month it's a burger that might taste a bit like a trip through countries in East and South-East Asia:

Steamed buns with Sriracha & lime mayonnaise, baby spinach & pea sprouts, Đồ chua (pickled radish & carrots), a little bit of spring onion, coriander, roasted sesame seeds and "pulled pork" in hoisin sauce.

Duration: approx. 4 hours (plus 1 night of rest)

Difficulty: medium

Makes 6 burgers

Ingredients:

Steamed buns

200g warm water

21g fresh yeast (1/2 cube)

30g sugar

75g rice flour

340g wheat flour

25g oil

5g salt

optionally some black sesame

Steam baskets

"Pulled Pork" seitan

400g can of lentils including liquid

50g soy milk (or water)

50g red wine

2g apple cider vinegar

50g rapeseed oil

10g salt

15g nutritional yeast

4g onion granules

1g garlic granules

1g white pepper

5g baking cocoa

optionally some MSG and red food coloring

250g gluten powder / seitan fix

Sriracha & lime mayonnaise

300g mayonnaise

10g lime juice (optionally also some lime zest)

30g Sriracha (mild, spicy or with garlic)

1g garlic powder

1g sweet pepper

5g sugar

a bit of salt

25g (soy) milk

Đồ chua (pickled radish and carrot)

100g carrot

100g radish

175g water

50g rice vinegar

5g salt

15g sugar

Everything else

Baby spinach leaves

Sprouts (I recommend pea sprouts)

spring onions

Optional coriander/cilantro

roasted sesame seeds

some oil

some soy sauce

125g hoisin sauce

Preparation:

The seitan has to be prepared the day before for an ideal consistency, a detailed recipe can be found here.

The night in the refrigerator should ensure that you can tear such beautiful seitan shreds out of the seitan lump the next day. Of course, you can also use other seitan, meat substitutes or TVP soycurls instead if you want to save yourself the work.

The buns then take the longest the next day. You can of course also simply buy these in a wholesale market or in an Asian grocery store and then steam them in the microwave, but if I am doing something, I try to do it properly. ;)

You can mix the yeast, sugar and water in a bowl.

Then add the flour, oil and salt.

Now knead the dough with a machine for about 8-10 minutes. It takes a lot longer by hand and you will probably need around 10-15 minutes. If you absolutely cannot handle the dough, you can of course still add a little flour little by little until you get a smooth dough and can make a "gluten window". If you can separate a small part of the dough and pull it apart with your fingers until it becomes very thin, almost transparent like a "window", without tearing directly, then the gluten in the dough has developed well enough. Then the dough can rise in a lightly greased bowl, covered, for about 45 minutes in a warm place until its volume has roughly doubled.

In the meantime, the Đồ chua can be done. To do this, cut the carrots into julienne strips that are as even as possible and your radish too (unless you use radishes, just slice them) and mix them together with the other ingredients. The vegetables are then allowed to steep in the brine until they come on the burger. In theory, you can do this the day before, just like the sauce, while the seitan is in the oven.

The Sriracha & lime mayo is also super easy, just mix all the ingredients together and taste again with a little salt. Then the sauce is allowed to soak through a little until it is later used with the burgers. If you use homemade mayo and not a store-bought one, you may be able to leave out the soy milk. I just wanted a consistency that could be drizzled over the burger with a squeeze bottle.

The dough should have risen properly in the meantime and can now be divided into 6 buns of the same size and then shaped. Lay out your steaming baskets with a little baking paper, put the buns in (maximum 2 per basket) and then let them go again in a warm place for 20-30 minutes. You can now optionally rub it with a little water and spread black sesame on it.

Bring about a liter of water in a pot that fits under your steaming baskets to a boil. It really needs to boil, we don't need just a few bubbles. We then need the steam to cook the buns for 15 minutes after they have risen.

While the buns are steaming, you can fry 500g of the seitan shreds in a little oil. As soon as they have gotten their color and become crispy, add a dash of soy sauce and the hoisin sauce. Stir it through and fry the seitan a little more, but don't let it burn.

Then all the main components for the burger are actually ready.

Now quickly wash some lettuce or, even better, baby spinach leaves and dry them well and then you can start serving on the still warm buns.

First some of the Sriracha Mayo on the bottom of the bun, followed by the spinach leaves and the pea asparagus. Express some of your Đồ chua and put it on the spinach. Then add a generous portion of "pulled pork" to the pickled vegetables. Top it all with a little Sriracha sauce and finely chopped spring onions and if you like some toasted sesame & coriander. I prefer to put the top half next to it for serving, but of course you can also just put it directly on the burger.

Aaaand your burger of the month is ready.

Guten Appetit!

If you've read this far, you might have noticed that I'm not running any adds, to improve your reading experience and because I deeply believe, that vegan recipes should be accesible to anyone.

But if you want to invite me on a virtual cup of fairtrade coffee via my PayPal.Me Link, I wouldn't say no. It would mean the world to me and helps me to keep buying ingredients for even more recipes. Thank you for cooking something vegan. 💜

If you're not using Paypal, you could also support me over here: