Desi Style Chicken Burgers

Here’s something that can brighten up your Monday. You can make these burgers on Sunday, refrigerate them and carry them to work/school on Monday. They’re easy to make and absolutely delicious.

These were inspired by the amazing Sahil “Demonstealer”Makhija, India’s only heavy metal cook. You should check out his cookery show “Headbanger’sKitchen”, and his bands, Demonic Resurrection, Workshop and Reptilian Death.

INGREDIENTS

For the patties

Minced Chicken – 600gms

Onion – 1 large, chopped fine

Garlic – 1 tablespoon, chopped fine

Ginger – 1 tablespoon, chopped fine

Green chillies – 1 tablespoon, chopped fine

Fresh coriander leaves – 2 heaped tablespoons, chopped fine

Salt – 2 level teaspoons

Garam masala powder – 1 level teaspoon

Black pepper powder – 1 heaped teaspoon

Eggs – 2

Sattoo powder – 2 heaped tablespoons

Vegetable oil for frying

For the buns

Pao buns – 8

Butter/Mayonnaise

METHOD

Mix together all the ingredients for the patties. Don’t be afraid to use your hands, make sure there are no lumps.

Now minced chicken even with all the ingredients will have the consistency of a very thick paste. Add more sattoo if you want to make it thicker, but don’t overdo it. Too much sattoo will make it taste awful.

Before you fry your patties, fry a test piece. Put your frying pan (preferably non-stick) on the flame and add oil. We will not be deep frying the patties, so just add enough oil so you have a little less than a ½ inch layer. Now take a spoonful of the chicken, and once the oil has started smoking, gently drop into pan, and fry on high heat till all sides are golden brown.

Take it out of the pan, give it a minute to cool and then taste it. Make sure you got the seasoning right.

Now shaping the patties can be tricky. You could buy an expensive hamburger press, but the simpler, and cheaper way is to use a large jar lid, covered in some clean, transparent, plastic wrap. Make sure the jar is not too much larger than the pao buns, line it with the transparent wrap, wipe the plastic with some vegetable oil, so the chicken doesn’t stick to it and then begin shaping.

Add enough chicken to fill the lid, flatten it down so it takes the shape of the lid, scrape off the excess. Gently invert the lid and tip the patty on to your hand, and then gently drop the patty into the oil, once it’s smoking hot. You can look at photos of this technique, here.

If you don’t have a lid, it’s not really a problem. Just scoop the chicken, using a tablespoon or serving spoon into a large enough ball, and once you put it in the frying pan, flatten it out into a patty. But this way, it does get harder to have evenly sized and perfectly shaped patties.

Now remember, chicken cooks very very fast, so DO NOT lower the flame. Fry the paties on one side till they become golden brown and firm enough to flip. The turn them over and cook the other side. If you feel the oil has become too hot, and there’s way too much smoke, you can turn the gas down to medium-high at most. Do not slow cook chicken burger patties on a low flame, they will lose all their moisture and become totally dry.

I find it takes about 3 minutes on each side to cook the patties on high flame. But then that’s on my gas stove. Your stove may cook it faster, or slower, so pay attention to the patty when your frying it.

Once the patties are done, slice the pao buns in half, and toast the insides lightly. Don’t brown them, just make them a little crisp.

Apply butter or mayonnaise on the inside of the pao buns. I find Amul cilantro flavor cheese spread goes really well with these “desi style” burgers.

When placing the patties inside the pao buns, you can improvise and add a slice on onion, tomato and lettuce if you feel like it. I don’t bother, coz they taste great anyway.

Makes 8 – 9 burgers