Tikka Hamburgers

Its the bank holiday and it's sunny so the BBQ will be coming out. 

If you fancy something a bit different on the burger you have lovingly grilled give MJs Tikka Burger a go!

Whilst on holiday recently i got into a conversation with my son about things you don't or rarely see on menus. We had a bit of a laugh considering different food options until we came across a "Tikka Burger". This started to become a more interesting conversation as we looked at what a Tikka Burger might look like. 

We decided that what we needed was a normal beef burger grilled as normal and instead of mayo or ketchup or a burger sauce we should have a tikka sauce. So here it is version 1 of the MJ Tikka Burger! 

What we need to do is to make a tasty tikka sauce, once we have that sauce we can use it in our burgers along with some crispy fried onions.

Ingredients for the Tikka Sauce

3 tbsp butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 ½ tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp powdered fenugreek

1 tsp powdered paprika

4 cardamom pods, lightly bashed

1 garlic clove

1 thumb of ginger

50g ground almonds

pinch soft brown sugar

1 tbsp malt vinegar

600ml passata

100ml cream

fresh coriander leaves

300ml water

Juice from 1/2 a lime

To get started heat up a frying pan and add the onions, the idea is to soften the onions you don't want to flash fry them so a medium heat is good here. You are looking for the onions to soften.

Whilst this is cooking blitz the garlic and ginger together to make a paste.

Once the onions are softened add the garlic and ginger paste and the spices into the onions and cook for a further 3 minutes. 

Now that these spices have all combined with the onions, garlic and ginger add the malt vinegar, sugar, ground almonds and the passata. Add the water and bring to the boil.

Once the mixture is boiling turn down the temperature and let the mix simmer. You want to reduce the liquid so that you have a nice red thick sauce. 

As the sauce becomes thicker add the cream and continue to simmer. Once the sauce is at the desired consistency add the juice of the lime. Add some finely chopped coriander, mix together and leave. 

You now have a wonderful tikka sauce that you can use for many different recipes, some fresh fish or maybe some chicken! But today we will use it for the burgers! 

I didn't have time to make any burgers today so i bought some ready made 1/4lb burgers made from 100% beef. I grilled these burgers and also toasted the buns so that i would not have soggy bread.

As an extra touch i also fried some onion slices to give me an extra texture and taste. 

I spread the sauce on the buns and then added the burgers. Finally topping with the onions. 

And Bingo we have tikka burgers! 

Of course we can use the sauce on other meat and fish and we could look at infusing flavour into the burger itself or even the bread. However this is round one if it's a winner we will look at what to do next! 

Have a great bbq wekend!