Moroccan Turkey Burgers

If you're like me at all, the intense heat and humidity transform the diet to mostly fruits and vegetables. There’s nothing wrong with this and every year at this time, I eat this way to cool off. The only downside is that I eventually need some heavier foods to ground me and to keep me from getting run down. This is precisely why I began thinking about Moroccan Turkey Burgers. I made these several years ago and loved them. I’m not sure why I never made these burgers again, but I revisited them over the weekend with the recipe below that I pulled together from a couple of recipes I found from Cooking Light Magazine and CultivatingLife.com. These burgers are tender, juicy, and flavorful, and eaten on a roll or not, they're great as is. For me, they simply don’t need anything else. The other night, I made these with 101 Cookbooks’ Grilled Salt and Vinegar Potatoes and Emeril’s Cold Cucumber Soup with cucumbers and chives from the backyard. This was a heavenly meal that brought me back down to Earth. The burgers and soup were also a hit at a family barbeque over the weekend.

Moroccan Turkey Burgers

1 lb ground turkey

3 sweet turkey sausages, meat removed from the casings

3 T tomato sauce

¼ cup raisins or currants

1 shallot or 1 small onion, minced

1 t grated lemon rind

1 t cumin

½ t cinnamon

1 t coriander

½ t cardamon

½ t ground cloves

½ t sea salt

1/8 t black pepper

1-2 T grapseed oil

In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients except the oil, and mix well with your hands without overworking the meat. Cover and chill the mixture until ready to cook. Form into 5-6 patties about ½ inch thick. Drizzle each side with the oil and grill or cook in a frying pan on the stove. Try to turn only once during the ~ 10 min cooking process. Serve with lettuce, tomato, and condiments (or plain!) on a nice multi-grain Kaiser roll. Or skip the bun and serve with grilled potatoes and/or a tossed salad.