Lamb Patties with hummus & pitta

After all of the tagines, stews & roasts I’ve eaten & cooked up lately I felt like a bit of a change & decided on something lighter for dinner tonight. Keeping to my weekend Nigella theme I cooked up the Lamb patties from Forever Summer. Quite simple to prepare & a nice casual dinner. The patties were very nice especially when combined with the sauce & salad ingredients though when making again I would add dome salt & pepper to the mix just for a bit of extra flavour, I am a bit of a salt addict though. Also as you can see I made my patties a bit bigger so only got 17 patties from the mix. Half of this is heaps to fill 2 large pitta’s and serve 2 people. Michael was happy too as he is a big souvlaki man so was nearly able to believe he was eating junk food which he loves!

Lamb Patties with hummus & pitta

For the patties
50g bulgar wheat
500g lean lamb mince
4 teaspoons dried mint
4 teaspoons dried oregano
1 clove garlic
zest of 1 lemon
olive oil for frying

For the pittas
Pitta breads
Lettuce, shredded
Fresh mint, chopped
1 red onion, halved & sliced into very thin half moons
hummus
Greek yoghurt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
tomatoes
lemon

Soak the bulgar wheat by covering with boiling water & leaving for 15 minutes in a small bowl.

Drain the bulgar thoroughly, pressing the water out in a sieve & put it in a bowl with the minced lamb. Add the dried mint & oregano, mince in the garlic & the lemon zest. Stir everything thoroughly & form into small walnut sized patties, then flatten slightly & arrange them on glad wrap on a plate or baking tray & let them stand for 20 minutes in the fridge to firm up. You can leave in the fridge for up to 6 hours before frying. The mix makes about 34 patties which makes about 8 bulging sandwiches.

Fry the patties in a little olive oil until cooked through, and a beautiful golden brown on both sides. These are little, so it shouldn’t take too long: about 4 minutes a side. The important thing is not to crowd the pan as you cook.

To make up your sandwiches, roughly proceed as follows. Toast or otherwise warm each pitta bread and cut a strip off one long side to open it, then stuff it with a salad of shredded lettuce, chopped mint and half-moons of red onion rings. Dollop into each gaping pitta (and you can do this before or after the salad stage actually) a couple of tablespoons of hummus mixed with 1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt and a pinch of ground cumin. Cram with four or five lamb patties, then squeeze in half a tomato roughly chopped and give a good spritz of lemon juice.