Greek Chicken Eggplant Burgers [Zack]

I have recently taken a liking to eggplant. I think it's vastly underrated as a main ingredient if you want to exclude meat from your meal, or even as a supplement. In this recipe, I decided to "beef up" the chicken patties with a bit of veg. Since eggplant is like a sponge, it soaks up all of the great chicken juices and keeps them in the burger instead of ending up in your pan. Being able to reduce a bit of meat in my diet without giving up anything on flavor seems to be a win-win. Plus, you can trick your kids into eating vegetables!

Process:

Start by dicing shallots and zebra-peeling your eggplant. The skin of an eggplant is bitter, but contains some nice nutrients, so you can settle for the best of both worlds by using 1/2 of the skin.

Dice your eggplant into small 1/8 inch cubes.

Add shallots with about 1T of olive oil to a pan on medium heat. Let them cook slowly until they are translucent  Then add the diced eggplant and let cook for about 8 minutes until it's softened and lightly browned. If you feel inspired, you can add numerous dried spices here such as oregano, parsley, and cilantro.  Add some diced garlic if desired and add a touch of salt.  Cook for 2 minutes more.

Let the eggplant cool off and start preparing your Greek yogurt sauce.

Dice onions, tomatoes, cilantro and feta cheese. Squeeze out the tomato water to make sure the sauce doesn't get runny. Mix with the yogurt.

Make sure your ground chicken is as cold as possible, and add in the cool eggplant mixture. Also, sprinkle a bit of salt, cumin, and cheyenne. Mix this together lightly and form into patties.

Add them to the pre-heated pan on medium-high heat. I chose to use a non-stick pan with some oil in there because I was afraid of the patties falling apart. They held together beautifully! Cook for about 6 mins per side and test the doneness by pushing on it with your finger.  It should feel firm and only slightly bounce back.

Toast buns or bread (I chose to use my Artisinal bread recipe baked with caramelized onions on top). Add the Greek sauce, then a splash of Sriracha (if you can handle it!), then the burger. I cut my burger in half to fit the bread. Enjoy!

Recipe:

1 diced medium onion or 2 large shallots diced

1 eggplant (zebra-peeled) in 1/8 inch dice

2 lbs / 1 kilo of ground chicken

1 T cumin (half for the Greek sauce and half for the burger mix)

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried cilantro

1/2 cup unflavored yogurt

1/3 cup crumbled feta

1 small diced red tomato, squeezed to remove the water

1/8 cup diced cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

toasted buns or bread