Tempeh patty with chickpea

Assembling hamburger with tempeh patty

Today I am going to make hamburger patty using tempeh. I posted an article on making patty with tofu. This is a similar recipe. Tofu is not considered an ideal food because of its estrogen content which has some negative effects on human health. Tempeh is fermented soy. Fermented soy products do not have the disadvantages of tofu.
The tempeh in your region may look different from the tempeh picture that I have shown in this post. This does not make any difference in the recipe or taste.

Tempeh

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Serves: 6

Chickpea,onion,green chili and scallion

Ingredients
main
300 grams tempeh
50 grams potato
100 grams split chickpea
Others
70 grams onion
25 grams parsley
1 green chili chopped fine
3 cloves garlic halved
5 grams ginger grated
75 grams bread crumbs
100 grams potato
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon pepper powder
5 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter

Garlic and ginger

Preparation
Soak the chickpea in cold water for 3 hours.
Boil and peel the potato and chop large pieces.
To boil potato in a microwave oven, put the potato in a small microwaveable dish prick the skin with a fork and add 1 table spoon of water. Run the microwave oven for 2 minutes. Turn the potato and microwave for another 2 minutes. Let it cool. You will be able to peel the skin easily with your fingers or with a knife. Set the cooked potato aside.

In a steamer add the tempeh. Bring the water to a boil and steam the tempeh for 15 minutes. This step is not necessary. But steaming removes the slight bitterness from the tempeh. Set the steamed tempeh aside.

Tempeh arranged for steaming

Method

In a food processor grind lightly the onion, parsley green chili, garlic and ginger. Do not make a fine paste but a little coarse paste. Remove the ground mixture.

In a small frying pan or wok add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Heat the oil and add the mixture and fry for about 5 minutes or till the water is evaporated. If it is not dry it will make the patty soggy.

Now add the fried mixture to the food processor and Pulse it a couple of times to mix everything well.
Add the soaked chick pea and grind into a coarse paste.  Dump the paste into a bowl.
Now add the tempeh and potatoes to the food processor and grind to a slightly smooth paste. You may have to add one or two spoon of water for grinding. Now add the ground tempeh and potato into the bowl with the ground chickpea.

Minced tempeh  and chickpea

tempered onion, parsley green chili, garlic and ginger added

Add 2 tablespoon of butter or vegetable oil. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Make one patty and see if it crumbles. If it crumbles it needs some binding agent. We are going to use bread crumbs as our binding agent. You can use all purpose flour instead of bread crumbs. If it does not crumble then you can omit the bread crumbs or flour.
Add the bread crumbs and mix well. If the mixture is too dry add one or two tablespoon of water because we dried our ingredients and tofu by frying them. Now you should have a firm paste.

Balls made from tempeh mixure

Divide the paste into balls of equal size. Flatten them thin.  If you make them thick the inside will not get cooked well.

In a skillet or frying pan add a little oil and pan fry the patties till they are golden brown. I fried them on a cast iron griddle. It will take about 6 minutes on each side.

Now assemble the burger. Roast the bun in the same skillet or griddle.

Apply chili paste to one side of the bun.
Add a slice of cheese.
Add the patty.
Add salad leaves.
Add pepper sauce.
Add tomato slices.

Instead of pepper sauce you can use mayonnaise. But I wanted to make this vegetarian and hence I did not use mayonnaise.

The hamburger is ready.

Tempeh burger

Apart from the hamburger I used coconut flat bread with tempeh patty. It was a different taste.

Tempeh patty with coconut flat bread