Who doesn’t love a juicy burger? This meal is great for the whole family – children and adults like. Contrary to what you might think, these don’t come out too hot at all. The suya pepper gives this a nice whiff of adventure, and the pre-teen boys I cooked these for gave their seal of approval, so I feel very confident in sharing these with you. It’s a simple recipe, where you dump everything in a bowl, roll, and mix. These burgers also freeze beautifully so if you’d like to make them in advance, you can do so, and then defrost and grill or pan fry as needed when the craving for a good burger hits.

 

Ingredients

1 – 1.5kg minced beef

4 cloves garlic

4 tsp salt

2 tsp suya pepper (also called yaaji spice or chichinga)

1 tsp  fresh thyme

½ grated onion

8 – 15 Burger buns

Mayonnaise, tomatoes and lettuce for building the burgers.

 

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl.
2. Using your hands, take a medium sized handful (about 1 heaped tablespoon of mince) and form into round, flat burger patties. Makes 8 – 15 burgers, depending on what size you make them.
3. As you make the burger patties, lay them on a foil wrapped tray, and use baking paper over each layer of burgers to prevent them from sticking to each other. 
4. Grill on a hot barbecue for about 3 minutes each side. Serve piping hot with a little bit more suya pepper to sprinkle on top. 
5. Toast your burger buns and build as you see fit with mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.

 

 

This recipe is from Season 1 Episode 8 of Minjiba Entertains, commissioned by The Africa Channel and showing on RealTime DSTV Channel 155, Emirates in-Flight Entertainment, Amazon Prime, and Demand Africa.