Not Takeaway...

Takeaway comes the shout from the living room, Not takeaway comes my shout from the kitchen in reply to what shall we have for dinner. What is it with kids and takeaway. Anyway a search through the freezer revealed a bag of cod pieces, frozen parsnips, a bag of chips and a frozen block of mince. My offer of fish pie fell on deaf ears and shepherds pie got a yeah ok. Hmmm whats a girl to do. So I'll make my own takeaway. Burger and chips. I sent Joe down to Sainsburys with a list of supplies and popped the mince in the michael wave to defrost and the chips in the oven to cook and 20 mins later we had cheeseburgers and chips with a healthy mixed leaf salad and tomato's on the side. Perfect. Did they like them, a resounding yes, and they're now a firm Francis family favourite. Oh all right then, here's the recipe.

1lb of Minced beef
1 Beef stock cube
Sage and Onion stuffing.
1 Egg

1. Place the minced beef in a large mixing bowl.
2. Put the stock cube (I use Knorr but you could use any cube) into a cup and pour on just enough boiling water to melt it.
3. Add the stock, egg and half a pack of stuffing to the mince and give it a good mix with your hands until it is thoroughly combined. The mixture should be firm enough to stay in a burger shape but not to dry that it crumbles. If you've added to much stuffing add a little water to loosen it up a bit or leave the mixture for 10 mins if its too wet for the stuffing to absorb some of the liquid.
4. Shape the burgers in your hands and place them under the grill. I cooked ours on the George Forum type grill we have.

These are so easy to do and if you stick all the ingredients in a bowl theres usually a willing child available to stick their hands in and mix it up. You can use lamb or turkey mince, the latter making a good very low fat version. If you want to put them on the bbq I would leave the shaped burgers in the fridge for a few hours to firm up a bit.