The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers - Book Review

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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers is the perfect cookbook for fans of the Emmy Award-winning television show Bob's Burgers. Bob's Burgers is an animated American sitcom about a struggling fry chef named Bob Belcher who runs a burger restaurant with his wife Linda and their three young children Tina, Gene and Louise.

A reoccurring gag in Bob's Burgers is the Burger of the Day chalkboard that Bob has behind the counter in his restaurant which he writes a new burger on each day. The burgers always have a pun or a joke in their name which more often than not ties into the plot of the episode and what is happening in the life of the Belchers at that time. The burgers of the day started off as just a joke in the background of the episode. Over time, they became an expression of Bob himself, and all of the passion and hard effort he puts into running his restaurant.

The idea to turn Bob's burgers of the day into a cookbook came after Loren Bouchard, the creator of Bob's Burgers, discovered a blog called the Bob's Burgers Experiment. The owner of the blog was a loyal fan of the show named Cole Bowden. Bowden had taken an interest in the Burgers of the Day and had decided to make a recipe for each of the burgers and then write about it. His creative interpretation of the burgers of the day impressed the writers of the show enough to want to team up with Bowden to write and illustrate a cookbook.

The Bob's Burgers Burger Book is a fantastic cookbook. It is 128 pages long and contains over 60 different burger recipes based off joke burgers featured on the show. The book is written from the point of view of Bob Belcher, which is just great. It doesn't read like a regular cookbook. There are jokes written into each of the recipes that make it sound like Bob is standing right there in the kitchen instructing us over the grill. It's hard not to read the recipes out loud without smiling. The book also features all-new, original Bob's Burgers artwork. There are pictures of Bob dancing in his garden, Teddy sitting in the restaurant having a burger, and Moolisa (RIP) resting in heaven, just to name a few.



We decided to have a go at making the Mediterr-Ain't Misbehavin' Burger. The Mediterr-Ain't Misbehavin' Burger was featured on the burger of the day chalkboard in the season two episode "Beefsquatch". This burger consists of thick slices of salted eggplant resting on a bed of rocket and topped with roasted chickpeas and a big dollop of minty tzatziki sauce.



The ingredients you will need for this recipe include:

1 large eggplant, sliced into thick slices.
Salt.
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed.
1 tablespoon olive oil.
1 teaspoon salt.
1 tablespoon paprika.
1 teaspoon ground cumin.
½ cucumber.
½ cup plain Greek yoghurt.
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice.
2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill.
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint.
4 buns.
Rocket (Arugula)

The recipe will make four burgers. We cheated a little when making this burger. We switched out the rocket for spinach and decided to use store-bought tzatziki. But that's ok. The whole point of this cookbook is to experiment and to put all sorts of crap on your burger to see what works and what doesn't.



The first step in the recipe was to slice the eggplant into thick slices and then place them on a baking rack or colander over a bowl. We chose to put ours in a colander over a bowl. After coating our eggplant slices in a generous sprinkling of salt, we set a timer and left them to sit for 15 minutes to draw out the liquid. After the 15 minutes was up, we flipped them over and repeated the process. Once both sides have been salted, discard the liquid and rinse the salt from the eggplant.



The second step was to sauté the chickpeas in olive oil with the salt, paprika and cumin until they were lightly browned and toasted. Bob chimes in at this point in the recipe and adds… "Like when you had that great tan. You remember that time." We toasted our chickpeas on the stovetop until they turned a nice, reddish-brown colour. We skipped step three which gave instructions on how to make the tzatziki sauce.

The fourth step was to grill, pan, fry or boil the eggplant in the oven until it starts to brown. We decided to do ours on a sandwich press. They came out really well. The final step is to build your burger. A lot of the recipes in the book come with illustrations that show how to do this which I liked. We put spinach on the bottom bun, then the eggplant, the chickpeas and a generous heaping of tzatziki sauce.



The end result was fantastic! Mediterr-Ain't Misbehavin' Burger was delicious. The paprika gave the burger an explosion of flavour which was complimented by the cool tzatziki sauce. The lightly browned chickpeas had a really great texture and a toasty, spicy taste and the sliced eggplant was perfectly seasoned and went well with the spinach.



I was really pleased with how the Mediterr-Ain't Misbehavin' Burger turned out. It provided a fun family activity to do in the kitchen. I can't wait to try other joke burgers from the show included in this book like the Baby You Can Chive My Car burger, the New Bacon-Ings Burger, and the Rest in Peas Burger. You're a beef artist Bob!

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