Burger Night.... Motsiyas Burger

Motsiyas Burger

Well another Burger Night has come and gone this past Wednesday here at the Olivas home in Guam. And what a night it was. This weeks burger was a Motsiyas Burger. Was it ever fantastic!!!

Motsiyas (mot-cee-jas) is a local delicacy here on Guam. It consists of a mixture of diced up chicken parts, hot pepper leaves, tomato leaves, young green beans, mint (yerba buena), lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. You can also mix in coconut milk and hot pepper, which is usually included. There are a variety of mixes and you can believe that everyone has their own "special" mix. All these ingredients are then mixed together, fashioned into small loaves and placed into banana leaves, tied and steamed in water and coconut milk. With so many flavors going on in Motsiyas, you can be that your taste buds will be taken on one fun ride. Motsiyas are so delicious. Well with such a great dish, I just had to make a burger out of this.

I had to change the basic recipe just a little because my daughter does not eat hot pepper and is slightly intolerant to milk, so out with the coconut milk and hot peppers. However, most of the ingredients were used, allowing for a still very traditional chicken blend.

Here are the steps that I used to make this fantastic burger...

First we start our with ground chicken. This is a package of white meat. Weighed about 1.7 pounds.

Ground Chicken

Next, I went into the garden and picked tomato, hot pepper and mint leaves. These were washed, drained and diced.

Tomato, hot pepper and mint leaves.

The next step was to pick the very young and tender green beans. I have the yard long beans growing in my yard so I used these. But any fresh green bean will work. These were diced small.

Diced fresh green beans.

I mixed this, by hand, all together adding salt and black pepper to taste.

Chicken, veggie and herb mix.

Now you can squeeze about two tablespoons of fresh lemon into the mix. I used our local calamansi lemons. Great, mellow flavor.

Calamansi Lemon.

Maked sure everything is mixed well together, fashion your burger patties and slap them babies on the grill.

The patty is sizzling on a cast iron, well oiled grill plate.

The burger patty is just about ready to come off the grill.

My finished Motsiyas Burger. I used large English-style sour dough muffins for the buns. Loved the flavor those brought to the burger. Added a slice of Swiss cheese. And garnished with iceberg lettuce, onions, Roma tomatoes, tomato ketchup, Dijon mustard and mayo.

I must admit I had a hard time biting into this burger because of the size, but I managed. It was everything that I thought it would be. The chicken patty was juicy and had absorbed all the flavors of the added ingredients. The mint was great and the lemon balanced everything out leaving a little tang on your tongue. Made my mouth water as I was devouring this burger. I'm definitely making this again. And I'm not changing the bun. The sour dough was perfect.

Well another Burger Wednesday come and gone. It was a memorable one. Still haven't decided what I am going to come up with for next Wednesday's Burger Night at the Olivas home.

Until next time....