Using Kokkoh In My Dream Diner Burger Recipes

I wrote earlier about Kokkoh, a special grain-milk powder, which I think would be an excellent ingredient to include in the burger recipes for my dream diner, Burger Number Seven. It's a flour mixture of roasted ground grains, seeds, and beans that you can prepare ahead of time and then add to your soups, desserts, and breads as needed.

For Burger Number Seven diners, Kokkoh could be used as part of the "soup" and "dessert" ingredients in the burger recipes and would act as a binding agent to keep the patty's shape and form. It could also be used in the sesame buns and side dishes on the menu, such as cookies, brownies, and even a beverage.

This is going to be fun, experimenting with new recipes. I'll have to see what's already out there — what things other people have already made using Kokkoh!

The following recipe for making Kokkoh grain-milk powder is from Julia Ferre's cookbook, Basic Macrobiotic Cooking, 20th Anniversary Edition.

Kokkoh — Roast separately, page 62 [dry roasting directions]
Cool and mix together. Yield: 2 1/2 cups

1 cup brown rice, roasted
1/2 cup sweet brown rice, roasted
1/2 cup whole oats, roasted
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, roasted
2 Tbsp. azuki beans, roasted

It would be interesting to try using other types of grains, seeds, and beans in this recipe too.

Cheers!

Related Blog Articles:
Kokkoh — A Special Grain Milk Powder
Ten Recipes To Health And Happiness — Burger Number Seven's Special Burgers
My Dream Diner

Turkey Plus — A New Name For My Organic Turkey Burger #-3

"Needs salt," my husband said. I had just created my first "animal" burger recipe for my Dream Diner — Burger Number Seven and given him the resulting burger to taste. But I forgot to add the miso to the recipe, thus the reason for his comment. To make up for the needed salt, I also served him some delicious lemon miso sauce from Julia Ferre's recipe for "Lemon Fennel" in a recent issue of "Macrobiotics Today." And then he liked the burger. He said it was good, and that he could taste the turkey. (I had tasted a tiny tiny bit of it from the pan and it tasted strong to me.)

Now I'm wondering if next time I should add miso to the lentils at the end of cooking as I had intended? Or, since I had used a little salt when I cooked the lentils, the squash, and the onions, maybe it would be better to give the customer the option of adding more salt by way of a miso sauce instead? Something to think about...

Anyway, since I started with only a half-pound of ground turkey, I was surprised that it came out to three good-sized patties. I think he was too. One half of a pound of ground turkey is equal to 1 cup, not 1 and 1/2 cups like I was guessing, and so I changed all the amounts in order to keep the same percentages that correspond to George Ohsawa's Macrobiotic Diet #-3.

Here's the final recipe:

1 cup organic ground turkey from Diestel Family Turkey Ranch [30% meat]
1/2 cup cooked onions (nitsuke style)
1/2 cup cooked mashed Hokkaido squash (a.k.a. kabocha or sweet Japanese pumpkin) [onions + squash = 30% vegetables]
1/3 cup cooked brown basmati rice [10% whole grains]
1/3 cup cooked lentils with kombu [10% "soup"]
1/2 cup ground, lightly toasted walnuts [15% nuts]
3 Tbsps. apple, tiny dices fried in sesame oil with slightly burnt edges [5% "dessert"]

plus olive oil (organic, extra virgin olive oil from California) for frying and 2 Tbsps. whole wheat flour for dredging

I placed all the ingredients, except the oil and the flour, in a large glass bowl, mixed them well together with my hands, and shaped the mixture into three round patties, being careful to not compact them too tightly. (I must remember to bring everything up to room temperature first because the ground turkey was still cold from the refrigerator and that made it harder for everything to stick together.)

The patties were quite soft but still manageable — they stayed together — and I gently dabbed each one in a plate of flour before setting them into my prepared frying pan on the stove, which I had already added the olive oil to and preheated. By having the pan and oil already hot, it helped to quickly form a crust on the outside of the patties, and thus keep their shape.

In the end, the recipe was a success, at least as far as my Taste-Tester was concerned. I asked him if he had any ideas for a name and he said "How about Turkey Plus?" Not bad! And so here's the first burger for my dream diner, Burger Number Seven.

"I'll have a Turkey Plus, please!"

Notes:
Julia Ferre's recipe for Lemon Fennel can be found in a printed copy or PDF download of the March/April 2011 issue of "Macrobiotics Today," available at the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website.

Related Blog Articles:
Organic Turkey Burger #-3
6. Ten Recipes To Health And Happiness — Burger Number
Seven's Special Burgers
My Dream Diner

Moosewood Cookbook — My Sixth Most Favorite Cookbook

Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen, © 1977

This is one of my favorite cookbooks even though I hardly ever use it. I like the way it makes me feel when I read it. It’s so down-to-earth, comforting, and creative. It sticks with me — after I’ve made one of the recipes once, I’ll never forget it or need to refer to it again. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

One weekend just last February, I had a butternut squash that got accidentally dropped and cracked open at the grocery store checkout stand. I decided to try a soup recipe with it. Perfect for a cold and wet wintery day!

RECIPE: for Butternut Squash soup — modified from ""Curried Squash and Mushroom Soup" on page 12 of Moosewood Cookbook

Part 1:
1 medium butternut squash*, baked for 1/2 hour (30 minutes) in 375ºF oven
1 1/4 cups water

Blend the above ingredients together until smooth (in a blender or cuisinart) and add
1/4 cup juice from an orange.
Set aside.

* (To prepare the squash for baking, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, place the two pieces of squash face down on a baking dish on top of two separate pieces of foil. Gather up the foil around the edges of the squash to make a bowl shape with a partially covered lid.)

Part 2:
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1 small clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Saute the above ingredients in a soup pot until onion is translucent.

Then add to the pot:

3 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger

Cover the pot and simmer for 10 minutes.

Part 3:
Add the blended squash and orange juice to the soup pot and gently heat everything together. Taste it and add lemon juice and/or cayenne pepper as desired.

This turned out pretty good!


Related Blog Articles:
My Top Ten Favorite Cookbooks

MACRO TALK

I came across some interesting web sites and/or blogs as I was searching for veggie burger recipes (for my Dream Diner). Here's a few of them:

• I found a Black Bean-Grain Burger recipe on the Smith's Vegan Kitchen web site that looks pretty good!

"We are not writers," they say on their web site, "nor are we chefs or professional cooks, just food lovers. We enjoy cooking, experimenting and sharing recipes and ideas with friends. We hope others will share their recipes as well!!" They got this recipe for black bean-grain burgers from The Chicago Diner Cookbook, and they also recommend the restaurant in Chicago. So I decided to see if the restaurant had a web site too, which it does:

• The Chicago Diner, Meat-Free Since '83

Vegetarian and/or vegan restaurants are great places to find macrobiotic food when traveling. The Chicago Diner has two "Check Please!: Chicago" videos on their web site's About Us/Gallery tab, which gave me a pretty favorable impression of the restaurant. Made me hungry just looking at their food! I thought the news article about how the restaurant started was pretty interesting too — and kinda romantic! (See the History tab on the web site.) I will definitely keep this diner in Chicago on my places-to-visit list.

• In a New York State of Black Bean Burger — this veggie burger recipe is from the Sustainable Pantry Cooking Blog.

Oh boy, oh boy! Not only have I found a recipe that calls for whole oat groats (which is not a very common ingredient to be found in recipes) but I've also found a good food blog! You can click their "About" tab to learn that Sustainable Pantry is "about cooking whole, seasonal food at home..."

• Carmelized Onion & Chickpea Burgers — the article from Saveur magazine made the burger sound really appetizing; the recipe comes from Chow. I was already familiar with Saveur magazine, and now "Chow" has become a new source for finding recipes. I found another veggie burger recipe there that sounds good to try, which is vegetarian and vegan:

• Black-Eyed Pea Vegan Burgers recipe from Chow.



Related Blog Articles:
Burger Number Seven — Concept For A Unique Restaurant Diner
Using Kokkoh In My Dream Diner Burger Recipes
Manhattan Non-Clam Chowder

Organic Turkey Burger #-3

Here's a recipe I'm developing for a special turkey burger for my Dream Diner. It's based on George Ohsawa's Diet #-3, that is:

Burger #-3 = 10% grains, 30% vegetables, 10% “soup” (beans, seaweed, miso, flour, etc.), 30% animal (meat, egg, dairy), 15% fruit, nuts or salad (raw or salt-pickled vegetables), 5% "dessert" (fruit, nuts, flour, oil, etc.)

I have a half of a pound of organic ground turkey from Diestel Turkey Ranch. For the purposes of measuring out the right proportions, let's say that's equal to one and a half cups of turkey (1/2 cup = 10%):

1/2 cup of whole grains (rolled oats, brown rice, etc.)
1 1/2 cups of cooked vegetables (onion, radish, squash, etc.), nitsuke style (not juicy)
1/2 cup of "soup" (cooked beans, seaweed, miso, etc.)
1 1/2 cups of ground turkey
3/4 cup combination of fruit, nuts, and salad (vegetable greens, and/or pressed salad such as pickled cabbage)
1/4 cup of "dessert" (such as whole wheat flour, apple, raisins, and nuts)

I don't think this recipe will need any other seasonings, since there's plenty of salt in miso, or pressed salad, and I can cook the whole grains and vegetables with a little unrefined sea salt.

Since cooked ground turkey usually turns out drier than ground beef, I think I'll use raw walnuts and olive oil in the recipe. The nuts will add texture, and so would chopped raw salad. I might use some fresh apple too, for sweetness. I'll check out some soup and dessert recipes for more ideas in Zen Macrobiotics, by George Ohsawa.

Okay, this is a start! Let's see what turns out in the kitchen... and then I'll give my turkey burger a special name.


Related articles:
My Dream Diner
Ten Recipes To Health And Happiness — Burger Number Seven's Special Burgers
Whole Grain Barley Miso
Turkey Plus — A New Name For My Organic Turkey Burger #-3

The Benefits of Unrefined Sea Salt

My Dad asked me last night to do some research for him about salt. Is it good for you? Is it bad for you? How much should you eat? I think that Herman Aihara gives a good answer in his book, Basic Macrobiotics. In his chapter, "Sea Vegetables and Salt," he says:

"Salt has had so much bad press lately that many people are now under the impression that it is harmful to the human body in any amount. In reality, we cannot live without a small, but crucial, amount of salt. All red-blooded animals must have a continual supply of the essential elements salt naturally contains in order to maintain a strong and healthy condition."

He goes on to talk about the dangers of today's common refined salt that has been heated in temperatures as high as 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is high enough to alter salt's chemical structure. "This structural change of salt is one of the reasons that degenerative diseases, such as heart disease and arthritis, have become so prevalent in this country."

"Many people consume large quantities of animal food, which contains relatively high amounts of naturally occurring sodium. Those who eat animal foods frequently should greatly restrict other sources of salt, but seldom do. However, those who don't eat many of these foods need to be sure that they have a good source of high-quality salt."

What is high-quality salt?

Mr. Aihara goes on to say, "The common table salt commercially available today is purified sodium chloride, or NaCl, with dextrose sugar and an anti-caking agent, usually a silicate, added. Natural sea salt is also mostly NaCl. However, the big difference is that it still contains about 4 percent of various minerals, which are extremely important for body function and development. This is a serious matter today because the minerals in topsoil, and thus food, are being depleted by commercial farming techniques, in which farmers no longer cooperate with nature."
He then provides his recommendations for a more balanced macrobiotic use of salt, including the reasons for not eating plain or raw salt at the table and directions for making gomashio, a table condiment containing roasted sesame seeds and natural sea salt.— see pages 131-142, Basic Macrobiotics, by Herman Aihara

Notes:
• Eden Foods provides a selection of condiments, such as natural unrefined sea salts as well as organic gomashio (also spelled "gomasio").

• Selina Naturally (The Grain & Salt Society) provides a selection of salts, including unrefined, finely ground Celtic sea salt.

• You can get the book, Basic Macrobiotics, by Herman Aihara at the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website.

7. The Seasonal Shopping List For Burger Number Seven

(Still under development — Part 7 of my Dream Diner Proposal)

At this point, having no idea of how to run a restaurant or plan its shopping list, say, for a week, I can only guess at quantities or amounts. But as I continue to develop my “Dream Diner,” I plan on doing some shopping of my own — for advice and suggestions — from other restaurants and groups who plan food events!

Organic Food Staples:

GRAINS:

• Barley
• Brown rice
• Buckwheat
• Corn
• Millet
• Oats
• Quinoa
• Rye
• Wheat berries
• Wild rice

FRESH ORGANIC VEGETABLES:
This list will change with the seasons and on what's available locally. An example of the basic vegetables that will always be kept in stock whenever possible include:

• Onions
• Carrots
• Garlic
• Daikon
• Parsnips
• Turnips
• Squash
• Kale
• Lettuce

FOOD ACCESSORIES:

• Cooking oils (sesame, coconut, olive) — What’s the best type to use for deep frying?
• Unrefined sea salt
• Sweeteners (such as brown rice syrup, maple syrup, agave syrup, and honey)
• Condiments (including organic unpasteurized soy sauce and gomashio)
• Fresh, pure water

RESTAURANT EQUIPMENT AND COOKING ACCESSORIES:

• Flour mills/grinders
• Pressure cookers
• Deep fryers
• Steamers
• Grills
• Ovens (for sesame seed buns and strawberry shortcake!)
• Salad presses

What else?


Seven-Part Proposal:

1. Burger Number Seven — Concept For A Unique Diner
2. The Face of Burger Number Seven — Its Logo, Design, and Name
3. Burger Number Seven — A Menu For All Seasons
4. Promotional Ideas And Kid Appeal For Burger Number Seven (A Free Toy)
5. The Special Staff Of Burger Number Seven (And Their Uniforms)
6. Ten Recipes To Health And Happiness — Burger Number Seven’s Special Burgers
7. The Seasonal Shopping List For Burger Number Seven

HOME — My Dream Diner — “Burger Number Seven”