Around 8 or 9 months, as your baby’s hand-eye co-ordination matures, finger food becomes an increasingly important part of her diet. The more you let her experiment, the quicker she’ll learn to feed herself. Start with soft fruit such as banana or pear, and steamed vegetables such as carrots sticks and florets of cauliflower. Raw vegetables are hard and your baby may bite off a piece and choke, so introduce these later.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes

Makes 12 mini burgers
Suitable for freezing

You’ll need:
• 150g (5oz) potatoes, unpeeled and scrubbed
• 2tbsp olive oil
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 60g (2½oz) carrot, grated
• 50g (2oz) leek, finely chopped
• 50g (2oz) brown cap mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• ½tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 70g (3oz) Gruyère cheese, grated
• ½tsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 egg yolk
• 3tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 90g (3½oz) fresh white breadcrumbs (around 2 slices of bread)
• 1tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• sunflower oil, for sautéeing
• carrot and cucumber sticks, to serve

Method:
1. Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until tender (around 25 minutes). Drain, and when cool enough to handle, peel and grate into a large bowl.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan and sauté the onion for 3 minutes. Add the carrot, leek, mushrooms, garlic and thyme and sauté for 10 minutes more. Cool slightly and add to the potato.
3. Mix in the Gruyère, Worcestershire Sauce, honey and egg yolk, and shape into 12 burgers.
4. Coat each burger in the flour. Dip in the beaten egg and then in the breadcrumbs mixed with the Parmesan cheese.
5. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and sauté the burgers, flipping at least once, until golden on both sides. Serve with veg sticks.

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