Top 5 – Vegetables to serve with Burgers

Now I have to admit this weeks top 5 is something of an after thought.  After 10 months of writing weekly Top 5s my inspiration is drying up a little.  I reckon I can finish the year but beyond that – who knows?  Any requests or ideas would be very welcome.

I don’t think anyone need think to hard to guess what we had for dinner tonight.  I was just clearing the plates away when my partner suggested this Top 5.  I didn’t have a nice photo of a burger so you will have to content yourself with the remains of Mr 3’s.  Be warned though 3 year olds and food are a messy combination.

The photo does give quite a few clues about this weeks top 5, although he’d eaten all his tomato by the time this was taken.

1. Tomato – Now various fast food restaurants would have you believe that you can eat a burger without tomato.  Well I guess you can but frankly who would want to?  Whether your burger is made from lentils, beef or chicken a couple of slices of tomato are a must and that’s even before you add any sauce!   Personally I add tomato sauce both in the burger mix (when making lentil or beef burgers) and after cooking but then I do like my tomato sauce.

2.Beetroot – I suspect this is quite an Australian addition but in my world beetroot is a must.  It needs to be the pickled variety and it needs to leave a slightly red stain on your fingers after eating.  Incidentally an Australian ‘burger with the lot’ would also include egg but that’s stretching the vegetable thing a bit too far, fruits I can pretend are veg but eggs?…hmm,  not really.

3. Cucumber – Like the beetroot, the cucumber should also be pickled, ideally with a bit of chilli for a slight tang.  Even the evil fast food giants realise that pickles are good with burgers – shame they make neither good burgers nor good pickles to go with them…

4. Lettuce – You simply must have a bit of green with your burger and lettuce fulfills this role admirably.  It is also very useful as if you overfill your bun, like I invariably do.  If you wrap the lettuce around the ingredients it helps to hold it all together.

5. Onion – I was tossing up here between onions and carrots.  I like a bit of grated carrot in my burger for sweetness but then I also like some fried onions for much the same reason.  When I make burgers I always have both but for the purpose of this Top 5 I’ll go for the onions, for the decadence mainly – carrot would just be too healthy and virtuous and you are eating a burger after all…

I know that you’ll have your own favourites.  I’d love to know what they are, and after that head over to the New Goodlife to check out her Top 5 for the week.