Turkey Burgers

The other day I looked in my fridge to see the turkey meat staring me down. I had a quick deep sigh assuming that I had already let the meat go to waste and I picked it up to verify this fact with a quick glance at the date. Nope! I still had an extra day to use it! Whew! I had recently made meatloaf and so I didn't want to make that again. Although I have made a yummy meatloaf before with this recipe. I didn't want to just mash it together and make turkey burgers - it didn't sound appealing and I didn't have much culinary inspiration to create a recipe on my own. So the hunt was on.

I scoured my cookbooks for a ground turkey meat meal. Julia Child failed me, Martha Stewart failed me (gasp!) However, the next book I picked up was the winner: 365 Dish A Day Cookbook on page 103 was my meal for the night. I adapted it as usual, but since the recipe isn't readily available for you to click I've posted both the original recipe and the one that I used as adapted by me.

Original Ingredients:
1/4 cup of long-grain white rice
salt and pepper
1lb of ground turkey
1 small cooking apple, peeled, cored and grated
1 small onion, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
1 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground allspice
vegetable oil for frying

Ingredients (as adapted by me):
3 Tbsp of apple sauce
1lb of ground turkey
1 small uncooked red apple, chopped finely
1 small onion, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
1 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground allspice
vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

• Cook the rice until tender. Drain, rinse under cold running water, then drain well again.
  
• Put the cooked rice OR applesauce and all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix well together
  
• With wet hands, shape the mixture into 8 thick burgers. Pour a little oil into a large, nonstick skillet, add the burgers and cook for about 10 minutes, turning them over several times, until they are golden brown. Remove from the skillet and serve while hot.

The reason that I substituted the applesauce in place of the rice was simply because I got started late and 1. didn't have white rice, I only had brown rice - which even in a rice cooker takes FOREVER and 2. I knew that without the rice I'd need some moisture - so since it already had apples - I figured the applesauce would be a good alternative and indeed it was! Yummy, not too applely though. In fact, if you didn't know they were in there you might never taste it.

I of course had the hand of my happy helper - who loves to cook whenever he gets the chance - so he helped stir dry ingredients together. Momma took over when we added the raw meat and popping hot oil and he sat in his chair consuming some applesauce. Yum!

The burgers turned out great - I didn't eat them with a bun or anything - just ate them straight. The biscuits in the background are an upcoming recipe that I am going to try. Those were leftovers from an event we hosted here a few nights prior. They are yummy. Stay tuned!