The Richmond knitters have a great relationship with Tony,the owner of Kojo Browns, our knit night venue. Come rain or shine, every Monday we turn up and eat, drink and knit. So recently I cheekily suggested a recipe that I had made up for Australia day BBQ to add to the menu.  Tony and the chef were enthusiastic and agreed to put it on the menu. The recipe was for a burger and I like to serve as an open faced burger topped with Welsh Rarebit. He’s been serving it for 2 weeks now and Sonia suggested that it would be a good idea to share the recipe on this blog. So without further ado…

The Kojo Burger

1kg minced meat (I’ve done it with all beef and 50/50 beef/pork, both were good, Tony uses minced Wagyu)

1 onion finely chopped or blitzed in a food processor

1 beetroot, finely grated

1 carrot finely grated

1 egg whisked

1 generous tsp horseradish

a couple of sploshes of Worcestershire sauce

some finely chopped thyme and/or parsley

salt and pepper

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and squoosh up with your hands, there really isn’t a better way to amalgamate the ingredients.

Make evenly sized patties and then obviously you grill or fry them. You can serve them with whatever you like to serve your burgers with but I do love Welsh rarebit and only discovered the affinity by happy coincidence. One day there was no cheese in the fridge to top my burger because it had all been used up in the welsh rarebit. Luckily there was some welsh rarebit leftovers in the fridge.

To make Welsh Rarebit I generally follow a recipe from this book. An excellent read that I can highly recommend full of delicious recipes.

warm 100mls milk and 50 mls ale in a pan.

Melt 25g butter in another pan then add 25g plain flour to make a roux (like a béchamel sauce)

Whisk the milk and ale into the roux and continue whisking for a few minutes. The mixture should be thick and glossy and bubbling.

Then add an egg yolk, 150g grated strong flavoured cheese, a splosh of Worcestershire sauce (1-2 tsp) and about 1tsp-1tbsp mustard (any type English/Grain/Dijon) depending on how mustardy you like it. Put a generous dollop onto of your cooked burger and then put the topped burger under the grill until the rarebit is bubbling. Then serve your burger anyway you like.