Carlin fries

Here's those black badger peas again! I hinted the other day that I'd have a go at making this traditional Northumbrian dish, and so I did. I realised as I was doing it that I was basically making veggie burgers!

So, I started with about 250g of dried black badger peas. I soaked them overnight in water then cooked them with a teaspoon of baking soda - just boiled and then simmered them for half an hour. Then I drained most of the water off and mixed in a fair sized pinch each of parsley, oregano, thyme and sage, and ground in a good amount of salt and black pepper.

Then I took a few bits off the ends of the loaves I've been making (the bits that aren't much good for toast or sandwiches) and used a cheese grater to turn them into about two large handfuls of breadcrumbs. I put those into the mixture along with a good blob of cooking oil and some chopped onion, so I had a mixture that looked like this:

I then started shaping it into little patties or burger shapes. I found that after the first one or two, my hands were just too sticky and it was impossible to work the stuff, but a through a bit of trial and error I discovered that if I put a bowl of water next to me and dunked my hands in it between each one, so I was doing it with wet hands, it made it a lot easier. Eventually I had a tray full of them:

It would probably have been better if I'd chopped the onion more finely, which I had actually intended to do. But I found after the first couple of cuts that my knife needed sharpening, and I just couldn't be bothered to do it, so I just hacked at it any old how and that's what I got. Note to self for next time - keep knife sharp!

I then put this tray of patties in the fridge, and left them there while I went to take mademoiselle to the dentist. Now, unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the finished product as we were too tired and hungry when we got back home to do anything but cook them and tuck in like famished orphans. Suffice to say they tasted so good that the following day I ordered a catering sack of these peas! And they were satisfying enough on their own for three of them, with a bit of salad, to be a full meal. 

And I'm posting this quite a while after I actually wrote it as I had intended to schedule it to post this week, but I forgot, so it languished in my drafts box until just now! Sorry!!