Dead Good Burgers
We missed good burgers, bought a £40 Aldi gas griddle and decided to make our own. Chickpeas, potatoes, a bit of improvisation and, unusually for Scotland, some actual sunshine.
We Miss Burgers
Living in a campervan comes with challenges. Especially with four kids.
I miss burgers and junk food.
Where we live in Portugal there are no fast food joints for about 45 minutes. Where we are in Scotland they're a bit closer, but still 20–25 minutes away.
Alison misses a Chinese takeaway.
I miss burgers and pizza.
Our pizza ovens are in Portugal gathering dust and the shop-bought, chuck-it-in-the-oven pizzas are pretty garbage.
So, much to Alison's annoyance, I bought the BARGAIN of a lifetime: a gas griddle from Aldi for £40.
I've been tempted to buy a big welder before and really regret missing that purchase. 🤣😂
So now we had a griddle, I could finally make some burgers.
Sadly not meat, as we don't eat meat. The kids can, but the two oldest don't want to.
I do have a recipe for a damn fine beetroot burger, but that's a bit of a faff in a campervan. We needed something simple.
Then I spotted a chickpea burger recipe on Facebook, just like they'd been reading my mind.
I thunk it. It appeared by magic. 🤣😂
Naturally, I Didn't Follow The Recipe
For once, I had a reason.
We're in Scotland.
Why does that matter?
Time is essential when you're cooking outside here. First the rain can turn up from nowhere, then the flying armada of midges rocks up and spoils everything.
The recipe said to grate the potatoes and cook them from raw.
I pre-cooked the spuds first, then grated them.
No idea why I bothered grating them after I'd cooked them.
I mashed them in with the chickpeas and the mixture was a bit stodgy and sticky.
The original recipe also had a crunchy coating. I skipped that completely because the only thing we had was Shredded Wheat.
That wouldn't have been fun.
Onto The Griddle
I fired up the Aldi griddle, got it scorchio, put a lump of coconut oil in the middle, which is solid because Scotland, and let it smoke a tad.
Then banged on the first patty.
I genuinely thought it was going to turn into a sticky mess.
It didn't.
It seared really well and, even better, flipped over like a proper burger.
I'm in business!
All the burgers went onto the griddle and the kids were getting excited. The sun had appeared for the first time in what felt like ages, so we even got the table out and they sat outside in the sunshine.
I skipped the fancy glaze from the original recipe as well. The kids aren't into fancy flavours yet, so they had ketchup and BBQ sauce.
Mine had fried onions, although not many because we only had one shallot to share between Alison and me.
Then about three different sauces, a mushroom and a tiny bit of cheese.
Basically, whatever I could find.
The Important Bit: Did They Taste Any Good?
First bite.
Banging.
The sear was really good, they tasted great, they were nice and easy to eat and I didn't feel bloated afterwards.
But the important test was the kids.
They scoffed the lot.
Wolfrik even wanted another one. We had one tiny patty left and he wolfed that down as well.
So that's a result.
Dead good.
Our Campervan Chickpea & Potato Burgers
This is how I actually made them rather than exactly following the original recipe.
For the burgers
- 250g potatoes
- 1 tin chickpeas, drained
- 60g rolled oats
- 20g cornflour
- 1 tbsp mustard
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- Coconut oil for the griddle
To finish
Use whatever you've got. We had:
- Burger buns
- Cheese
- Ketchup
- BBQ sauce
- Fried shallot
- Mushroom
- Various sauces
What I did
Part-cook the potatoes first. I grated mine afterwards for reasons that remain unclear.
Roughly mash the chickpeas and mix them with the potato, oats, cornflour, mustard and seasonings.
Shape the mixture into fairly thin burger patties.
Get the griddle properly hot, add a little coconut oil and put the burgers straight on.
Leave them alone long enough to form a decent crust before trying to move them. Once they've seared properly, flip them and cook the other side until they're browned and heated through.
Toast the buns on the griddle, add whatever toppings you've managed to find in the campervan and eat immediately.
Next Experiment
The original recipe coated the burgers in flour, mustard cream and crushed cornflakes before cooking them.
I completely ignored that bit.
So next time we're trying the cornflake-coated version.
It could be magnificent.
Or we could ruin a perfectly good burger.
We'll find out.