Chicken burgers or meatballs or burgers with the Thermomix (includes Instant Pot method too)

This week I have made one mistake after the other in the kitchen, for some reason they have turned out well. Today wasn’t an exception, my plan was to make chicken nuggets quickly for T’s dinner. I was mixing this recipe from La encimera de Gema with a recipe from the Australian Recipe Community that was recommended by someone (perhaps it was you?).

The result was a few small chicken patties that LittleT gulped down so next time I will make sure I add some more vegetables!

Chicken burgers or meatballs with the Thermomix

Ingredients (it made approx. 12 patties, a mixture of small and medium)

– 1 carrot
– 40 g milk
– Parsley to taste (i.e. depending on how much you like it or not you can use more or less, or why not try coriander?)
– 1 clove of garlic
– 30-35 g baguette chunk (or 1 slice of bread loaf)

– 350 g chicken breast or chicken thigh fillets, trimmed of all fat and cubed

– 30 g grated cheddar cheese (or whichever cheese you like)
– Pepper (optional)
– Half a teaspoon of salt

– Olive oil to fry

Method:

1. Add the carrot, milk, parsley, garlic and bread and chop: 6 seconds, speed 5. Use the spatula of your choice to lower down any bits that have gone up the walls of the bowl.

2. Add the chicken breast, pepper and salt: 10 seconds, speed 5. Lower any bits with the spatula.
Add the grated cheese and mix: 10 seconds, speed 5.

3. You are ready to turn them into meatballs, patties or burgers. Grab a bit of the mix with your hans and roll into meatballs. If you want patties or burgers, flatten them down with your hand. You can make the patties as big or as small as you want, I make mostly mini patties and some medium ones so that they would cook faster.

4a. To fry: Heat olive oil (or oil of your choice) in a large frying pan, turn over a couple of times, make sure they are cooked through.

4b. Varoma: 1 litre of water in the bowl and the meatballs, patties or burgers in the Varoma. Varoma temperature, speed 2 and start with 25 minutes, check they’re cooked through.

4c. To pressure cook / steam in your Instant Pot: add 250 ml to the inner pot. Place the meatballs, patties or burgers in a steamer basket. Lock the lid in. Steam release handle pointing to Sealing. Press Manual, high pressure, set to 5 minutes if they’re not too big, increase time if quite big. Do a few minutes natural release, about 5 and check if they’re done. Add a few more minutes if not. They turn out very juicy in the Instant Pot and you don’t have to babysit them.

Serve with Spanish flair! And a lovely fresh salad. If you make mini patties like I did you could serve them with dips (I bet a yoghurty one would go really well). Otherwise why not make a few burgers.