Hi everyone! A friend gave me an incredibly beautiful cookbook recently called The New Persian Kitchen. The photos are gorgeous, the recipes are simple and they couldn’t be healthier.
I finally had the perfect storm: A freed up afternoon, a lot of beets in the house, cooked lentils leftover from a lentil salad I made, cooked rice in the rice cooker and the cookbook staring at me from the coffee table. I was now ready to make the sweet and smoky beet burgers from the book.
PLEASE try them! They are beyond delicious and the recipe makes eights so you can indulge for a few meals. Here it is:
Sweet and Spicy Beet Burgers (from The New Persian Cookbook)
- 1yellow onion
- 3tablespoons grapeseed oil, plus extra for searing
- 1cup peeled and grated raw beets (approximately 1 small beet)
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1cup walnuts (I substituted cashews)
- 1/2cup golden raisins
- 2teaspoons sweet smoked paprika (I used 1/2 sweet and half spicy but both smoked)
- 1/2cup cooked green lentils, rinsed and drained
- Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
- 2cups cooked short-grain brown rice or white sushi rice, at room temperature
- 1egg
- Slice the onion to a thickness of 1/4 inch. In a medium skillet, sauté the onion in the oil over medium-high heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to darken and caramelize. Turn down the heat slightly and add the beets along with the garlic, walnuts, raisins, and paprika, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often.
- Transfer the contents of the skillet to a food processor and pulse several times until chunky. In a large bowl, combine the onion mixture with the lentils, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Replace the food processor without washing and add the rice and egg, and pulse to form a coarse puree. Add the rice mixture to the onion-lentil mixture and mix well with your hands.
- Lightly oil your hands and divide the dough into 8 portions. Shape each portion into a patty just under 1 inch thick.
- Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat and add oil to coat the bottom. Place the burgers in the skillet and cook undisturbed for 5 minutes. Gently flip the burgers and turn down the heat to low. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, until the burgers have a firm, brown crust. Serve hot with your favorite condiments (I used a mixture of 2 Tbsp Greek Yogurt, 2 tsp sriracha sauce and 1 tsp honey fully combined)