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).

Garlic Scape Pesto Fettucini with Sun-Dried Tomato Sausage

I know that title is too long. Sort of like something you would find on an insecure restaurant's menu. But this was no insecure meal. And it all started with my friendly local organic gardener. Where did I meet him? You guessed it, the farmer's market. They can also be found online at http://www.amarosia.com/.

This garlic scapes - something that looks like a stiff curling green onion - were great as a pesto. Not my recipe though. I got a free copy of the recipe upon purchase of the scapes. You wouldn't see a supermarket do that. And even if they did, the recipe would probably be some disgusting concoction.

Anywho, once I'd wizzed the pesto together with my food processor, I plopped a few handfuls of fresh spinach fettucini in some well salted water (These were bought from an Italian couple who sell their pastas at the market - ravioli to be featured soon). Eight minutes later, I pulled out the cooked noodles with tongues, did not dump them in a colander but simply in a bowl and drenched in the pesto. Now I've been reading alot about Italian cooking lately and if memory serves me right, this is what you're supposed to do with your pasta. Pasta water for Italians seems to be what butter is to the French. Or something like that.

Along with this very fresh pasta, I fried a few sausages from my market Italian sausage man. His sausages are huge, flavourful and always interesting. He makes buffalo sausages, apple sausages, a variety of Italian sausages (obviously) and, my own purchase, a pork sausage with goat cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. They were delicious and subtle. Their beautiful juiciness cut right through the richness of the pesto and the pasta. These ingredients complemented themselves very well.

What a joy it is to cook when things actually turn out like you wanted them to!

Amarosia's Organic Garlic Scape Pesto
5oz garlic scapes
3/4 cup olive oil (the original recipe call fro 1 cup but I find 3/4 is quite enough)
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
1/2 cup pine nuts, or walnuts
Salt and pepper to taste

Their way:

1. Coarsely chop garlic scapes, removing tough tips. Place in a blender and add 1 cup olive oil. Puree.

2. Add 1 cup parmesan cheese and 1/2 cup pine nuts. Puree again, add extra olive oil if needed.

3. Stir into freshly cooked pasta. Season with salt and pepper if desired.

My way:

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor except the olive oil. Pulse till a paste has been achieved.

2. Slowly drizzle in olive oil with processor spinning till the pesto becomes creamy and makes little slooshing sounds. The slooshing sounds are very important. Splashing means you've put too much e.v.o.o. in. Shame on you.

3. Stir into freshly cooked fresh pasta preferably made by your own hands. Season and enjoy.

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.

Market Fresh Pesto

When it comes to figuring out what's in season, the grocery store is almost useless. The only place to go, in my opinion, is the local farmer's market. Everything is fresh, local and in season. Seeing as we're coming around to tomato and fruit season, it came as a beautiful surprise to find a generous bunch of fresh basil.

The only obvious thing for me to do with basil is good old fashioned Italian pesto. Though I have an excellent Italian cookbook in my library, I figured I'd just grab the ingredients and wing it. After all, how hard can it be to make pesto.

As is not always the case with my impromptu cooking, my pesto turned out great. In contrast to the overly salty versions you find at the grocery store, my pesto was smooth and creamy. I filled my food processor with about 8 cups of loose basil leaves, topped with 3/4 of a bulb of garlic, a bag of pine nuts equal to about 3/4 cups, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese and started the machine. All I did then was pour olive oil into the spinning mixture till it formed a nice sauce...not too oily and not too light.

Though I'm sure there are other ways to serve pesto (if you know any please comment on this post) I like my pesto with pasta and nothing more. My girlfriend added some shrimp one night and that gave it a nice added touch. Either way you serve it, pesto is just great. The perfect recipe to highlight the fruits of the market and the hard work of local farmers.