Millet Burgers with Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Pecorino

Combine 3 cups water and millet in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer slowly until it's like a thick, coarse, hot breakfast cereal, about 30 minutes. Uncover and stir well to incorporate any last bits of water. Scrape the millet into a large bowl and cool for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a small heat-proof bowl. Cover with boiling water and steep for 10 minutes.

Place the pine nuts in a dry medium skillet set over medium-low heat. Toast until lightly browned and fragrant, about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Pour them into the bowl with the millet.

Drain the sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a fine-mesh sieve and add them to the bowl with the millet.

Add the olives, cheese, caper berries, oregano, and marjoram. Stir well, mashing the ingredients together. You want texture here, bits of this and that scattered throughout the burgers, not a baby-food puree. Use dampened hands to form the mixture into 6 round, even patties.

Melt the butter in the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet, preferably nonstick. Slip the patties into the skillet and cook until mottled brown and somewhat crisp, about 4 minutes. Flip them and continue cooking until set throughout, mottled brown on the other side, and now nicely crisp, about 4 more minutes. If your skillet isn't large enough to hold all 6 patties at once, work in two batches, using 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter for each batch.

Save time:Use 2 1/3 cups millet cooked until the grains are creamy like porridge and omit cooking the raw grains.Make It Easier!In truth, these millet burgers can be made with lots of the ingredients found on your supermarket's salad bar: olives of all sorts, roasted red peppers, and the like. Just keep in mind an Italian antipasto flavor palette to create your own version.Testers' Notes•Here, we've used an Italian palette to balance the aromatic millet. Note that the recipe calls for the larger, oblong caper berries, not capers.•The timing for cooked millet is a bit dodgy since the grains are notorious for picking up and holding ambient humidity—as well as releasing it in a dry environment. Don't stand on ceremony: lift the lid and check the millet as it cooks, adding more water as necessary. You want crunchy texture but no distasteful grit.•These patties would be a treat on whole-wheat buns with a little purchased caponata as well as thinly sliced red onion and crunchy lettuce. You could also slice the cooked patties into bite-sized bits and toss them in a large, Italian-style, chopped salad, dressed with a creamy vinaigrette.•These patties don't reheat as well as some of the others, although they do make great late-night snacks right from the fridge, cut into small pieces and dipped in deli mustard.

Reprinted from Grain Mains: 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Copyright © 2012 by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Photographs by Tina Rupp. Published by Rodale, Inc.