Chicken heart burger with sprouted pea pesto, roasted red pepper and Greek yogurt

I love offal. Not only does it have a depth of flavour which muscle meats often lack, it's also super cheap. Most people are turned off by offal but not I. I had a craving for a burger, saw chicken hearts at the store and voila! Chicken heart burgers.

The texture of the patty was more similar to a pate but they still held together nicely (the leftover meat I cooked as a pate so...). The taste was great. The heart has a subtle flavour similar to liver but milder. The condiments also went really well with the meat. Here's the recipe (sorry that I don't have any quantities):

Patties
- Equal quantities of chicken hearts and ground pork
- Good handful of black olives
- Tsp anise seeds
- Tbsp fresh rosemary
- Juine and zest of one lemon
- Salt and pepper
- Dry bread crumbs, about half the amount of the meat

1. Blend all ingredients together in a food processor, form into patties and then gently cook on the barbecue. The mixture is quite crumbly so if you have anything for the grill with smaller holes, use that...just to be safe.

Pea pesto
- 2 cups peas (I had sprouted peas but fresh or frozen peas would do)
- Half cup almonds
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 cup mint leaves
- Salt
- Olive oil

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor and blitz. Loosen the mixture by slowly pouring in olive oil as it blends. You should end up with a creamy looking, firm mixture. Think pesto.

Serve the patties on fresh, toasted burger buns along with some roasted red and greek yogurt (or sour cream).

Turkey Pesto Burger with Havarti

Not only is ground turkey alot leaner than beef, I would argue that it's juicier. As I was grilling them, the exterior of the patties were getting nice and golden. Inside was a little pocket of goodness and juice. I then folded the slices of havarti I had into a little stack and melted them onto the patties - this helped to keep most of the melted cheese on the patties and not in the bottom of the bbq.

Putting my homemade pesto in the patties was a great addition. It completely sprung out and made the usual bland pattie taste good. Think about this: if you wouldn't eat the pattie by itself then maybe you should work on that before working on any fancy toppings. I find that ground beef doesn't help much with tastiness of patties since it has little to no taste...meaning that it's not like a smack in the face, party on your tongue kind of taste. Granted I don't have the most sophisticated of pallets. Anyways, pesto in patties is simply a good idea.

As far as toppings go, I went with the usual: salsa, tomato, pickle and red onion slices. The result was one great burger lying between two slices of a toasted bun. Contrary to my experimentation with sausage burgers, turkey pesto burgers were very delicious.