Fish and Chickpea Burgers (salad) with Tartar Sauce

These are a great healthy meal and my guess is that even kids would like them on buns...specially since I found the recipe on a blog called Eco Child's Play. The tartar sauce was really great too, that recipe gleaned from Epicurious.com. I only made 1/3 of the tartar sauce recipe, but I'd say for this amount of burgers 1/2 would have been the perfect amount. I should note that I wouldn't have made tartar sauce, but for the fact that we have a vegan eggless canola mayo by Spectrum that is only 35 calories per Tb, versus regular mayo's 90. It's a really great mayo that I don't feel the least bit guilty buying for my Monster's daily lunch sammie. Much better for you than the still icky "light" mayonnaise. But back to the recipe...the only thing I added was a little touch of agave nectar, and I didn't have any viable tarragon, but I'm sure that would have been great. I might mention that the Monster ate 3, I ate 2, leaving 3 remaining. So I figure this recipe feeds either 2 adults + 2 kids, or 3 adults worth.

Fish & Chickpea Burgers:
(Vanessa Brown at Eco Child's Play blog)

Canola cooking spray (I use Spectrum brand...good stuff)
1 lb of fresh natural tilapia filets
1/2 tsp kosher salt
Pepper to taste
1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves (I didn't really chop them for the 1/2 cup measure)
1/4 cup bread crumbs (I found whole wheat bread crumbs in a store brand..sweet!)
1 egg, beaten
Mini whole grain buns, or bread if you're making a sammie instead of a salad.
Optional...last time I made these I added a shake or two of Old Bay, and some Tabasco sauce into the mix

Romaine lettuce
Tomato slices
Tartar sauce (recipe follows)
lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spritz foil-lined baking pan with cooking spray and add fish. Season with 1/4+ tsp salt and pepper to taste. Bake until flaky, 7 to 10 minutes (taking care not to overcook the fish since it still has to be subjected to more heat in the patty cooking process). Remove fish from oven; leave oven on.

In a food processor, puree chickpeas, parsley, 1/4 tsp salt and bread crumbs. Process for 1 minute. (If you don’t have a processor, use a potato masher instead.) Place bean mixture into a large bowl with the egg; crumble in fish. Gently mix with your hands until it’s incorporated, then form into 8 small patties.

Coat an ovenproof skillet with canola cooking spray (or you can just wipe some canola oil around the pan with a paper towel) and put over medium heat. Add burgers. Cook until brown on one side, about 5 minutes. I spray the cakes lightly with more canola spray before flipping cakes carefully, then place in oven for 5 minutes.


Serve on mini-buns with lettuce, tomatoes and tartar sauce. Or, do as we did and serve atop romaine dressed with a touch of olive oil, lots of lemon juice, kosher salt and pepper. Toss your greens then add avocado slices, tomato, cucumber, patties and tartar sauce and of course more lemon over the top of everything. :-)

Tartar Sauce:
(Bon Appetit, Jan. 1999...got 4 forks!)

1 cup mayonnaise (Look for Spectrum vegan eggless canola mayo)
1/4 cup finely chopped dill pickle
3 tablespoons chopped green onion
1 tablespoon drained capers
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (Tabasco)

Whisk all ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Season with pepper (says and salt too, but ours didn't need it). Cover; chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.