Hello, I'm Moyra Fraser and I write the recipes for Heart Matters.
Today I've got Victoria with me
and we're going to be showing you how to do some salmon burgers.
They use a new grain - quinoa.
VICTORIA: It's a source of fibre,
it's also got carbohydrate and protein in it as well.
So it's a nutritious grain to use.
Well, it means that we don't need to use breadcrumbs in the burgers.
That's right, and that also means that you're not adding extra salt.
I'm going to pop it in a saucepan. I've got 25 grams there.
Just cover it with cold water.
I'm going to leave that to boil for 20 minutes until it's nice and fluffy.
Next we're going to put together all the flavouring ingredients.
I've got three spring onions here, finely chopped up.
I've also got some dill here, which is a favourite herb with salmon.
I always put the stalks in too. Yeah, that's good. Don't waste anything.
So, that's that chopped very finely.
Quinoa is cooked now, you can see it's gone...
Oh, yeah, it's really puffed up, hasn't it? That's right, and quite transparent.
So I'm just going to drain that and leave it to cool.
I'm going to put a teaspoonful of oil into the pan.
I'm using just a simple olive oil.
Oh, OK. That's like the famous Mediterranean diet, associated with lower risk of heart disease.
So I'm just gonna heat the oil up a little bit and add in our spring onions.
Now they just take two or three minutes to soften down.
So the onions have softened nicely now, I'm going to add in the chopped dill...
and the zest of a whole lemon.
And that's just frying for an extra minute or so.
Now don't be frightened to add lots.
I'm going to put in a good 10 to 12 twists of the mill here.
And black pepper's fine, you know.
It's just the salt really to avoid.
Right, so we're gonna leave that to cool now.
I've got some salmon fillets here
that I have taken the skin off, so if you just pop that in there. OK.
Now the important thing with this is just to blitz it so it's like rough mince.
It's almost like it's a burger texture,
not to take it too far so it goes too mushy.
Maybe another couple of goes...
Maybe another... That's it. Perfect!
You can see it's just coarsely minced up. You can see how that will stick together.
And salmon's really good because it's an oily fish so it's the source of omega-3 fatty acids
I'll add in the spring onion mixture...
and the quinoa.
And then finally just one small egg yolk
and that just helps bind everything together.
So it's quite a wet mix, isn't it?
That's right. At this point you might think when you're doing it,
'Oh, gosh, I've done something wrong. It's too soft!'
But don't worry, it all comes together.
So that's ready for shaping now.
It is quite soft but they are easy to shape.
Now I have tried these with white fish
but it's not as successful as the salmon.
So here's our six burgers.
I'm just going to cover these in cling film and pop them in the fridge overnight.
And they do firm up more.
Now we're going to make a healthier alternative to traditional tartare sauce.
We're going to start off with a nought percent fat yoghurt.
Into that I'm just going to add in two teaspoonfuls of a reduced-fat mayonnaise
and an ounce of pickled gherkins.
Chopped up. And then again, any herbs that you want.
You could use the dill again.
I'm using chives.
Again we're adding lots of flavour, aren't we? That's right.
A lot of the traditional sauces I think that you'd have with burgers
can be quite salty and sugary as well.
And then I also add in just a little bit of the pickling vinegar.
Just put a teaspoonful.
And the most important thing when you're doing this is to leave it in the fridge overnight.
Actually mixing the low-fat yogurt with the mayonnaise is quite a good tip just generally, I think,
if you're using mayonnaise.
It will give you a lower-fat than even the reduced-fat mayonnaise.
Exactly. I'm just going to cover it with cling film and pop it in the fridge overnight.
Here's some I made yesterday. Lovely.
So we're going to fry up two of them
and I'm going to freeze the remainder. Great.
I've got a small saucepan here. I'm going to use my olive oil again. Yeah.
So pop the burgers in.
You can see they've firmed up nicely.
And then just leave them to sizzle and brown on the underside for a minute.
That forms a really nice sort of crust to the burger.
You try to do that without moving them around too much.
And as they cook they'll firm up a bit more, won't they?
That's right.
Can you see it's nice and golden on the other side there?
So once the underside's brown, we'll flip them once more
and then just another three minutes and that should be them done.
So there's our burgers cooked. You can see, nice and golden. Lovely.
And you can tell that they're cooked through the middle but still quite soft, so we'll turn those off now.
So we're gonna assemble our burgers now
and I've bought some really lovely seeded wholemeal buns.
That's another good way of getting a bit of extra fibre in the diet.
And they're really delicious. Yeah.
I'm just going to open the buns up and just spread on a little bit of our sauce.
I'm going to put the hot burgers on top...
and then finally a bit of salad, which again could be anything.
I've got some lovely baby kale here with some thinly sliced shallots through it.
Yeah, kale's popular but any greens are good for you really.
And there we go. Lovely! Mega salmon burger.
Well, thank you, Moyra.
I hope we've inspired you to eat more fish, and to try this recipe.
If you log on to the Heart Matters website you can find it for yourself.