Recipe #6 from The China Study Cookbook

Spinache Chickpea Burgers.  


The only resemblance to a burger is the shape--round and flat.  They'd fit a normal hamburger bun nicely, but of course I had to buy the fancy whole-grain buns that are 20% bigger than normal.   I tried to make the patties a little bigger, to fit the bun, but they tried to fall apart so I gave up.


All that said, they're good.  Especially when topped with a slathering of caramelized onion and mushroom and drenched in tomato ketchup.  (Veggie mayo or avocado slices would have been healthier, I admit, but the whole reason for making veggie "burgers" was to give me an excuse to eat ketchup.)

This recipe also took care of the  Ingredient of the week:

Flaxseeds.  Or rather, flaxseed meal.  Mixed with water and set aside for twenty minutes, it gets gooier than eggs.  I didn't think to taste it, but as a binding agent it's supreme.

Flaxseeds are high in omega-3 fatty acids, in fact, their omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is 0.26:1.  If that looks funny, it is--it's backwards from the typical ratio--tofu 7:1; canola oil 2:1; olive oil 11:1.  It's nowhere near as good as Pacific salmon  (0.2:1), but then it's nowhere near as expensive.

The cultivation of flax for fiber has an ancient history, but the mass-production of flaxseed meal or flaxseed oil seems to be a modern invention.  Wikipedia has an uncited report of its consumption--roasted, with rice-- in northern India.  I find it to be an amusing aberration of my brain that it is prejudiced in favor of foods that have been in cultivation for a long time.  Why should "people have been eating this for centuries" have any weight in my food choices?   People have been stupid for centuries, too.  But I'm still a sucker for the "ancient wisdom fallacy."