Sweet Potato and Chickpea Burger with Tahini Spread

I was surfing the web and saw that most of the food-related updates were connected to the Superbowl. Finger foods, bar bites, burgers and beers comprised most of my news feed. To add to that, I was missing vada pav from back home. This dish was a result of all such thoughts. I decided to use sweet potato as the primary ingredient. Most vegetarian burgers contain mushrooms – but I’m not a big fan of them. To add some body to the burger, I used chickpeas. This combination worked great together and the patty had layers of flavour and texture. When slathered with some tahini yogurt dip topped with thinly sliced onions, it was a perfect bite. It is not very oily and the patty has loads of texture on its own. We paired it with wholemeal buns – but they are good enough to eat on their own. For those who are vegans, you can just skip the yogurt spread. I would love to hear how it turned out in case you try it 🙂

Recipe Details :
Serves: 3 pax
Time: 45 mins
Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients :

• For burger patty

• 1 sweet potato
• 2/3 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight. Else use canned ones.
• 1/3 cup of all-purpose / wheat flour
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Salt to taste

• For tahini spread

• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 2 tbsp tahini
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

• If you are not using canned chickpeas, pressure cook or boil soaked chickpeas till they are soft.
• Wash and peel the sweet potato. Coarsely grate it to yield around 2 cups. Once grated, squeeze out the water from the sweet potato.
• In a bowl, take the grated sweet potato, chickpeas, flour, salt and the spices. Mix well to combine. While mixing, try to keep different textures of the chickpeas. I left some whole, some were partly broken and some were smoothened into a paste.
• Make rounds of the patty mixture and flatten them.



• Heat a non-stick pan on medium flame and add the oil. Place a flattened patty and let it cook on one side. After about 2 mins, flip it to the other side. Remove it when golden brown and crisp.

To make Tahini spread:

• For the spread, take all the spread ingredients in a bowl and stir. It will seem thick at the start, but as you keep stirring it, you will get the desired consistency.
• To assemble the burger, I placed the patty on the lower half of the bun, added a layer of onions on top of it and then topped it off with the delicious tahini spread. We had a great meal!

Tips:

• Do not overcook the chickpeas. You need them to give texture to the patty.
• Squeeze as much water as you can from the sweet potato. If the patty mixture is too “wet”, it will not get crisp.