Bacon burgers

We've had a burger-maker for several years and I've always made my own beefburgers from shop-bought mince. But recently we acquired a mincer, one of those good old-fashioned cast iron ones that screw onto the worktop. It was Rog's idea to try making some bacon burgers.

We paid a visit to Whiterow Farm shop, which is only a few miles away from us. It's a fairly upmarket establishment and most of their produce is very fine, but a bit pricy - except for their bacon offcuts! We bought a whole kilo for just under a fiver!

There were only a few bits of rind to throw away, then I put it through the mincer. .

 . . . this is half of it.

Working with roughly 500g, you need to add an egg, a couple of desertspoonfuls of roughage (I use oatbran, but you could just as easily use breadcrumbs), and seasoning to taste - as its smoked I dont personally add any salt.

Mix it all up together until homogenous, then prepare the burger maker - mine is from Lakeland, and has served me well over the years.

You can make your bacon burgers any thickness you like up to the maximum depth of the burger maker, which is about 1.7cm, but I personally think that while thats fine for beefburgers its just a bit too thick for the bacon ones. I find that if I fill a ramekin and then use half of the contents for each burger, they come out at about 1cm thick and just right for us.

I made about 30 burgers from the whole kilo, and including the price of 2 eggs, that works out at under 20p per burger. Pop them in the freezer and use as required (they cook better defrosted, so remember to pull them out of the freezer and leave in the fridge overnight). They are delicious in pitta bread with lettuce and tomato, a different take on a BLT, or use them as you would a normal rasher of bacon. Enjoy.

I would urge you to use and eat only British bacon - yes, I know Danish is much cheaper, but the reason for that is they dont have the same rules of animal welfare as we do, and their pigs are not humanely bred and slaughtered as ours are.