Asian Style Pork Burgers with a Ribbon Salad

We absolutely love burgers in our house, in all their glorious guises, and even when dieting, these feature regularly on our weekly menus, minus the buns and with a salad instead of chips and slaw.

They're only Asian in the sense that the main of the flavourings; sesame oil, lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic and ginger and I serve with a little salad of carrot, cucumber and radish ribbons with a quick Asian dressing; delicious, fragrant and very satisfying. 

The below makes four adult sized burgers; or in our case, 3 plus two smaller ones for my two little ones.

Asian Style Pork Burgers with Ribbon Salad

Here's how:

• 750g pork mince
• 5 spring onions
• 3cm piece of ginger
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 green chilli
• Juice of 1 lime
• Handful of chives
• Big handful coriander 
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• Black pepper

For the salad:

• 1 carrot
• 1/2 cucumber
• Handful raddishes
• Handful sesame seeds
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• Drizzle honey
• 1 tsp garlic oil
• 1 cm piece of ginger

Firstly make the burger patties; finely slice the spring onions and chilli, peel and grate the ginger and crush the garlic into a large bowl. Chop the chives and coriander and add to the bowl.

Pop the minced pork into the bowl and then give a generous seasoning with black pepper. Squeeze in the lime and add the soy, fish sauce and sesame oil.  

Now use your hands to mix the meat, mix well to ensure all of the flavourings become evenly distributed; be careful not to overwork the meat. 

Now pull out evenly shaped mounds of the meat and shape into patties with your hands, and set onto a chopping board or a piece of parchment paper. 

Now place a sheet of tinfoil over the grate in your grill, and place each patty on there and place on a medium heat for seven minutes, then turn each patty over and cook for a further seven minutes, or until cooked through.

Now ensure to wash your hands and clear the bowl that the raw meat has been in, and prepare the salad.

Peel the carrot and use a vegetable peeler to make thin ribbons of carrot, and set aside. Do the same with the cucumber, and then the raddishes; be careful if they're small ones, that you don't cut your fingers, and assemble all of the ribbons on a plate.

Now make the very quick salad dressing by simply combining the soy, sesame and garlic oil and the honey and grating in the ginger and give a good whisk. Drizzle over the salad ribbons and then toss over 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds over each salad.

Once the burger is cooked through, and nicely browned on each side add to the plate with a little drizzle of sweet chilli sauce, or if you're serving with buns, add the chilli sauce to the bun first. Enjoy!