Ground turkey curry

Or don't judge a book by its cover...

Basically food is like the men. It can be good looking, but after a while you discover there is nothing exciting underneath this beauty cover. Food wise you can get those lovely looking, modern dishes finished with champagne foam and liquid nitrogen but the taste is not there.

On the other hand with not very handsome man you can get a whole bunch of virtues that were not so obvious from a first sight. Again with food, some dishes not particularly good looking can be extremely tasty.

The reason I am writing this is that I want to prepare you for a not good looking dish. However if you give it a chance you will not regret.

I have found many recipes for Murgh Keema (ground chicken curry) and adapted them to my taste. Also I used ground turkey instead.





Serves 2-3

500g ground turkey
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
2-3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 medium onion, peeled
1 fresh green chilli (deseeded for less heat, or with seeds for little bit more spice)
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled
tsp of turmeric
half tsp ground coriander
150ml thick natural yoghurt (I used TOTAL and I think it is the best one)
200ml chopped tinned tomatoes
approx. 250ml frozen peas
salt
big handful of fresh coriander (leaver to top up the dish, stalks for more flavour)
about 100ml of water


Heat the oil in a big pan. Meanwhile I chopped chilli, garlic, ginger, onion and coriander stalks in mini chopper - I had coarse paste. Stir-fry it in the hot oil over a high heat for about one minute. Next add turmeric and coriander and fry another 30 seconds.

Next add the meat and fry, dividing big lumps with a wooden spoon, until slightly browned. Next add potatoes, about 100ml water, generous shake of salt, mix well, cover, turn the heat down and simmer for about 10 minutes. Next add peas, tomatoes and yoghurt mixed with little salt. Mix well, cover and simmer for further 5 minutes. Yoghurt may curdle a little bit - it really depends on the brand.

Serve in the bowls, garnished with some fresh coriander. You can chop some coriander and generously sprinkle the dish.

Five or less ingredients #1

I was quite temped to buy a new cookery book last week, but luckily for my purse, and more importantly for my shelves that have run out of space, Magda has told me not to do so! Being very optimistic she told me that possibly about half of the recipes will be crap and certainly I am able to cook better dishes using my own knowledge. The book that was tempting me was about tasty food made from four ingredients.

So I sat with a pen and a piece of paper and wrote a list of dishes that require five or less ingredients to prepare. I was quite impressed with the outcome , especially when I was making this list I still did not check any of my cookery books or magazines.

Therefore I have decided to start a new series. Just to explain how it works:

I am hoping to show tasty and easy to make five or less ingredients dishes. List of ingredients will exclude salt, pepper and water, as I presume everyone has those at home at all times. Sometimes possibly you will see some fresh herbs for garnishing, but these are not included and I only use them for photographing purposes and they will not have a major or any impact on the taste of the final dish.

I will also use ready buy products such as good quality powdered bouillon (stock), puff pastry, pesto or curry paste. Anyway I do use them on everyday basis, as not always I have spare time to cook homemade stock (or I run out of the frozen one) or make my own pesto. Not even mentioning homemade puff pastry, which is gorgeous and buttery but time consuming.

Right! Lets try first recipe. It is turkey stir fry in caramel sauce served with rice. The recipe comes from "Quick & easy Vietnamese" Nancie McDermott and I have made few alterations to it.

I have tried it before with pork, which is probably my favourite one but chicken, turkey or even king prawns are fine.



Turkey stir fry in caramel sauce

Makes 2

400g of turkey, cut into bite size strips
4 tbsp brown sugar
6 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
half tsp chilli powder
rice to serve (allow 80-100g uncooked rice per person)
ground black pepper (quite a lot)
2 tbsp cold water
2 tbsp hot water

Mix the meat with fish sauce, pepper and one tbsp of sugar and set aside.

Place 3 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp of cold water in non stick pan and boil until it starts to bubble and changes colour to honey-like and it is quite syrupy. Next add 2 tbsp of hot water and leave it to erupt for a little while, then add the meat with marinade. Stir until it is all covered with the caramel sauce and keep on the heat until most of the juices evaporates and meat is quite sticky.

Serve immediately with cooked rice.

Mushroom soup with meatballs

Serves 4

500g minced meat (I use turkey)
salt
freshly ground black pepper
chilli powder, as much as you like
2 tbsp soy sauce
500g mushrooms, sliced (I use brown ones)
2 leeks, white parts only, quartered lengthways and chopped
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
approx. 2l of vegetable stock
200g natural spread cheese or 150ml crème fraiche
some chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Mix minced meat with salt, pepper and chilli powder and soy sauce and using your hands form 16 meatballs about walnut size. Place on a chopping board and set aside.

In a big pan fry leeks and onions in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Next add warm stock, saving about 500ml of it for later. Bring the soup to boil, gently add the meatballs, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile mix the spread cheese or crème fraiche with the remaining stock until smooth and add to the pan together with sliced mushrooms. Boil for another 5 minutes, season with salt and black pepper.

Serve garnished with some chopped parsley.

Turkey & mango stir fry

Serves 2

300g turkey fillets (you can use chicken fillets instead)
2 tbsp of groundnut oil
2 garlic cloves
2.5cm piece of ginger
1 red chilli
small broccoli
6 baby sweet corns
whole fresh mango
lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp cornstarch (corn four)
cup of water or vegetable/chicken stock
handful of fresh coriander
Chinese egg noodles

Prepare the ingredients so they are ready to stir fry. Slice the meat finely, peel and chop garlic and ginger, deseed and chop chilli (leave the seeds if you as hard as Dirty Harry). Cut the broccoli into florets, and you can use the stalk too - simply peel it and slice - it is tasty and has nice texture. Slice the baby sweet corns in half lengthways. Peel and slice mango, discard the stone.

Heat one tbsp of oil in a wok and stir fry the meat until cooked, remove from the wok and set aside.

Add the remaining oil into the wok and stir fry chopped garlic, ginger and chilli and after a minute add broccoli florets and stalk and stir fry another minute. Next add the sweet corns and stir fry for 5 minutes.

Next add sliced mango, fry another minute then add turkey and cup of water or stock mixed with cornstarch. Squeeze lime juice, add soy sauce and boil for about 30 seconds - the sauce thickens quickly.

Serve with Chinese egg noodles cooked accordingly to manufacturer's instruction and sprinkle with some fresh coriander.