First of all, I prepared the ingredients as above. One red onion chopped up, one egg beaten, six spring onions chopped up, a piece of frozen garlic (equivalent to four cloves), 400g each of cannellini beans, chickpeas, and red kidney beans in chilli sauce, a handful of chopped coriander, a 150g block of halloumi chopped up small, and a tablespoon of hot sauce. I also added some flour later on – I didn’t measure it as it was simply to bulk up the recipe and make it less wet. The use of the sauce in the kidney beans was most likely what caused this, although I did not add in the lime juice which the original recipe calls for. I also missed off the red chilli and the breadcrumbs.

First of all I fried the onion and spring onion with the hot sauce and seasoning. I then mixed the ingredients together and mashed them up into a mixture from which I could make the burgers. Once the flour was added, it was a lot easier to do this. Rather than frying the burgers after I had shaped them and placed them into the fridge for half an hour, I put them on a tray and into the oven. I just find that I don’t like cooking home made veggie burgers in a frying pan – too many pieces flake off, the oil gets messy, and I don’t like to use oil unless I can help it anyway. The best option seemed to be putting them in the oven.

As I did not have a timing in the recipe for this, I put them in for about fifteen minutes and then watched them to see how they progress. The mixture darkens as it cooks because it starts to dry out. Then it’s a case of keeping an eye on certain elements: for example, the pieces of halloumi in the burger started to bubble, and the edges of the burgers started to crisp up. Once they looked almost done, I removed them from the oven and placed a couple of slices of cheddar cheese on each, returning them to the oven until they were melting and bubbling.

The burger mixture holds together quite well once cooked, although there were some more crispy bits where it was thin on the tray. It was nice and solid on the outside but creamy inside, and I could certainly taste all the ingredients. It was tasty but not very spicy – just very mild. I would obviously expect to have had a stronger spicy taste if I had put the chilli in, but that was down to personal preference. Actually, if I was to make this again, I would either add in more spices or more hot sauce.

The cheese definitely added a lot to the taste and enjoyment, so that is something that I would not miss off. I served it up in soft seeded white buns alongside some fries. They were good but not the best that I have ever eaten – certainly the best recipe I have tried so far, although they did not have much to compete against.

They actually look a lot better than they tasted, and while I’ve been putting this post together I’ve wanted to eat them again more and more every time I look at the images. While they do look great, what I really want to do is to refine this recipe and find a way to make it work even better than it already does – and over the next few posts I will be experimenting with the ingredients and processes to see if I can get it right.

On the VegBurge scale, I give this…

Taste – 7/10

Price – 8/10

Rest of experience – 7/10