Home Made Burgers with Freshly Baked Baps

For the baps: Mix flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a bowl. Add mik and water and mix in with fingers. Turn onto floured board and knead for 5 minutes?until dough is soft and elastic. Put dough back into bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Leave until doubled in size (about 1 hour). Knock dough back and divide into about 10 portions. Shape each one into around ball, then flatten out like a bap. Put onto baking trays, leaving plenty of room for them to rise. Leave to rise until doubled in size (about 30 minutes). Press your thumb into the centre of each bap (this will make the surface flattish, rather than domed). Brush with beaten egg and scatter over samsmw seeds. Bake in a hot oven at 220?C/425F/gas mark 7 for 15 minutes. Put on a wire cooling rack and cover with a dry tea towel. This will help to keep them sot rather than crusty.

For the burgers: Chop the onion finely. Heat a non-stick frying pan and spray with oil. Saute onions over a gentle heat until transparent. Add crushed garlic. Break up minced beef with a fork in a bow. Add the saute onions, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper, chilli powder and tomato sauce. Mix together and squeeze with your hands. If the mixture feel very wet at this stage, add more breadcrumbs. Divide into two and shape into burgers on a floured board. Heat a nonstick frying pan and spray with oil. Fry burger for 5 minutes on each side. To serve: Slice the baps and insert the burger, adding sliced gherkins, American mustard and tomato ketchup as required. Garnish with salad for a nutritionally balanced meal.

Jamieo Note.

I made these burgers using a burger press (door to door salesman). Make up burger mix and press between two foil sheets, chill for an hour. This gives an irregular size burger (see photo) but using lean minced meat means much less fat and fillers than commercial product. Jamieo