yellow indian bean chipotle burgers

The last several months i have been exploring the full catalog of amazing beans from Rancho Gordo bean farm in Sonoma County, California. They specialize in heirloom varieties of beans, many unique and rare ones such as yellow indian beans and  black lentils as well as overwhelmingly high quality of standards like black turtle beans. The price is certainly higher than usual but the quality and the farming methods are obviously worth the extra cost. I am moving in the direction of only using these beans in my menus! Check them out at http://www.ranchogordo.com/

Here is a burger i made recently using Yellow Indian beans from Rancho Gordo farms.

Step 1. the beans

1 cup yellow indian beans soaked overnight. Then drain, rinse, place these beans in a pot with 4 cups water and a bay leaf, bring to boil, cover, lower heat and let simmer 35 minutes. Drain the beans and set aside. When cool, mash them coarsely

While beans are simmering you can prepare the following:
1 stalk celery, minced
1 leek, minced
several cloves garlic, minced
i large carrot shredded.
1/2 cup walnuts chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp sea salt

in a frying pan, heat up oil and add the leeks and salt and cook till translucent. Add the rest of the above ingredients and cook for 3 minutes. Then add the following:

1 tsp chipotle powder
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp thyme
 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
cook for one minute, remove from heat.

then add
the mashed beans
2 tbsp fresh parsley
1/3 cup grated yama-imo (a Japanese tubor that helps bind these together)

mix all well together.

Form these into 4 large burgers.
You can grill them, pan fry them or bake them. When i bake them, i like to broil them for the last 5 minutes to brown on top