Curried Turkey

This was a pretty fast, super easy recipe for a filling, flavorful dinner. There is a lot of flexibility to this dish as well, you can change up the ingredients based on what you have in the house! Give it a shot. Oh, and it's a one-pot meal too, so clean up is easy peasy.

Curried Ground Turkey with Potatoes

Start with ground turkey (or chicken, or pork...), brown in a skillet with a small amount of oil. My turkey seemed to release a lot of liquid. Give this a chance to cook off, then add chopped onion, chile, garlic and ginger. Saute for a minute or two to soften the onions. Then add the spices. Curry powder or Garam Masala, coriander, cumin and a small pinch of tumeric. Allow spices to toast, then add broth or water, stir to combine.

Add diced potatoes to the mixture. Add a little extra water if you need, to make sure the potatoes are covered. Cover the skillet and cook until potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the potato. Stir once or twice during that time.

Add some green beans or peas...or other veg would work. Also add diced tomato, canned or fresh. Simmer for 3-5 minutes until the veg are cooked through. These were frozen green beans, so they only needed to heat up. Top with chopped cilantro.

This is a pretty complete meal as is, or you can serve with rice or flat bread. The choice is yours. I loved how easy the meal was. Plenty of good flavor, hearty and filling, and pretty healthy. I only used about 2 teaspoons of olive oil in the whole dish. The turkey was very lean as well.

Curried Ground Turkey with Potatoes
From Simply Recipes

3-4 TB vegetable oil
1 pound ground turkey (thigh meat if you can get it)
1 chopped onion
2 chopped garlic cloves
1-2 chopped fresh red chiles (optional)
A 1-inch piece of peeled ginger, grated fine
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste
1 TB garam masala (or curry powder)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2-4 Roma or other plum tomatoes, diced
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1/2 cup (loosely packed) chopped cilantro or parsley


1. Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large pot with a lid. When the oil is hot, add the ground meat, spreading it out over the pan. Try not to crowd the meat (you may need to cook in batches). Cook the meat without stirring, until it begins to brown.

2. Add the chopped onion and chiles. Stir and sauté for 4-5 minutes, or until the onion begins to color a bit. Sprinkle salt over everything.

3. Add the grated ginger and garlic, mix well and sauté for another 1-2 minutes.

4. Mix in the spices, water, and the potatoes. Stir to combine and cover. Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

5. When the potatoes are tender, add the diced tomatoes and peas. Mix well and cover the pot. Cook 2-3 minutes. Add salt, if needed, to taste.

6. Right before you serve, mix in the chopped cilantro. Serve alone or with flatbread or white rice.

Serves 4.

Scott's Notes:
*I used only 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil
*There were no red chiles, so I used one jalapeno
*I needed about 1 full cup of water to help the potatoes cook, most of this water evaporates, but you are left with a little "sauce" in the pan
*I used a little extra garam masala and probably 1/8 of a tsp of tumeric
*I used canned diced tomatoes, which I drained, probabaly 1/2 a can. Also used frozen green beans.

Pumpkin Curry Soup

I bought a small pumpkin for cooking this weekend. Even the smallest pumpkin available at our market was still bigger than I needed. So after I got what I needed (another post coming soon!), I had just over 4 cups of cleaned, diced pumpkin waiting for something delicious to happen to it. I could do pie, but I'm probably considered a foodie heathen, but I prefer Libby's canned pumpkin for pies! So that generally means something savory. So soup it was gonna be. But I didn't want straight up pumpkin soup, I wanted something more. Pumpkin Curry Soup! With only a quick search of my books, I didn't find anything adequate, so I just started with my own recipe. Shall we?

Pumpkin Curry Soup

I started with 2 TB of butter, 4 chopped shallots and 2 carrots, peeled and chopped. Saute until the shallots start to turn golden.

Add 1 1/2 TB of mild curry powder, 1 TB garam masala, 1/8 tsp of cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp tumeric, salt & pepper. Add 1 TB grated ginger. Stir and let the spices bloom in the butter! Mmm, blooming in butter!

Add about 4 cups of diced pumpkin, 1/2 can of diced tomatoes and about 3 cups of broth. Chicken or veggie. Stir to incorporate. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, until pumpkin is tender. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return to the pot, taste and adjust spices. Optional, but OMG so good, add about 1 cup of coconut milk. Stir to incorporate. Taste and adjust seasoning again. Serve hot!

I had some left over toasted pumpkin seeds. I garnished with those. The texture was nice, but these were spiced and the flavors conflicted. If you have some plain roasted seeds, they might be nice. Or some fresh herbs. Enjoy!

20 day break? Sorry!

There comes a point in your blogging career when blogging becomes work. Not work as in this is is so painful and I don't want to do it. But work as in I'm exhausted from a long day and all I want to do is take a nap. I've been pooped out! My only really hobby right now is going home and vegging. So I have been. I'll continue to blog when I can and hopefully the time will come when I'm not so tired and get back into blogging on a regular basis.

In the meantime, I have a few things to share...

Channa Masala! This is an incredible budget meal. Chickpeas simmered in a spicy (you decide how spicy), curry sauce and then served over rice. Very tasty. I made a big batch so we'd have some food for lunches.

Penne with tomato vodka cream sauce. How do I love you, let me count the ways: 1) Penne. 2) Vodka!! 3) Cream! 4)Tomato. And 5) Sauce! Love. Simple, rich. Super rich. Very tasty!

Chicken quesadilla with corn, shallots, jalapeno and lime. Season a chicken breast with salt & pepper. Saute until cooked through. Dice. Saute some shallots and jalapeno in the same pan. Add the corn and diced chicken. Squeeze some lime. Stir. Good. Good as is. Better when smushed with cheese between a large tortilla!

Pides! A Turkish style pizza with chicken, cheese, tomatoes in a delicious crust. Filling! At the Mediterranean restaurant, Cafe 8 on 8th Street SE, Washington, DC. It's the only thing I've had there, in the 4-5 times I've been. Check them out.

Tikka Masala

Dinner the other evening was Indian. This is a very easy recipe for Tikka Masala sauce. It's tasty. It's adaptable to what you would like to use the sauce with. In my instance, I was a heathen and used pork. Pork is not a traditionally used meat in Indian cooking. Some religious groups don't allow it. Others have no issue-particularly those in the Goa region ofSouthwestern India. But one of the main reasons it isn't used is the food needed (corn) for the hog isn't grown in Indian, or grown easily/affordably. Regardless, you can pretty much use what you like. I think grilled chicken would be great. The recipe called for shrimp. I'm ambivalent about the shrimp, but I think if they were skewered and grilled, then dressed in the sauce, this would be awesome.

Tikka Masala

Start with some clarified butter (Ghee). Ghee can cook at higher temperatures than regular butter, as the milk solids have been cooked out. Alternatively, you can use oil. Ghee will have more flavor.


Caramelizing onions. Yum.


Stir in some tomato paste, then spices. Cook over heat for a few quick minutes to get the flavors dancing.


Stir in some water or broth. Bring to a low simmer. Depending on what protein you might be cooking, add it now and let simmer until cooked through. Shrimp would only take a few minutes. Chicken 10-12 minutes, and depending on the size, about the same for the pork. At the end stir in some plain yogurt. (alternatively, if you used up your plain yogurt in another recipe, I added some lemon juice, stirred that in, then added a shot or two of cream.)


Serve over rice.

As I said, this was good. Easy and tasty. But I will say, if I'm in the mood for this, I will probably just make Indian Butter Chicken. It is very very similiar, but my preference would be the butter chicken.

Tikka Masala
adapted from Martha Stewart recipe
2 TB neutral oil or clarified butter (ghee)
1 large onion, sliced
3 TB grated ginger
1 TB grated garlic
2 TB tomato paste
1 TB garam masala
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
1 cup water or chicken broth
1/4 cup plain yogurt
Salt and pepper to taste

Cooked rice for serving

1. In a heavy pot such as a dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently until golden, about 20 minutes, then add the ginger, garlic, tomato paste, chili powder, and garam masala. Add a little oil if necessary to allow the ingredients to blend into a thick-yet-runny consistency, and cook until the flavors have begun to marry and are very fragrant, 3-4 minutes.

2. Add the water and stir until the mixture is smooth, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and stir in the yogurt quickly. Serve immediately with rice.

If you are adding meat or seafood to the sauce to cook, add it during step 2. Shrimp-4-5 minutes. Chicken/Pork-about 10 minutes.

Mulligatawny Soup

Yesterday's dinner was a pot of Mulligatawny Soup. A spicy Indian curry soup. With just a few steps, you too can have a bowl of this exotic soup; warming your belly and clearing your sinuses!

The recipe starts by making an elixir of ginger and garlic. This brings a very robust punch of flavor to the finished soup. I'm not fond of it and in the future, I plan to skip this step. I will maintain the quantity of ginger and garlic, because I like those flavors, but the intention is that they remain uncooked at the end. Uncooked garlic and ginger taste metallic and sharp to me, so I'll pass in the future.

The main recipe starts with butter, onions and tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper.

Add garlic and ginger. Stir in some unsweetened coconut and all the spices and flour (to thicken the soup.) A note on the coconut; I can't find unsweetened coconut at my grocery stores. We're not that sophisticated. So I bought the regular, sweetened coconut and steeped it in boiling water and rinsed in hot water. I did this three times. Here's what happened; the extra sweetness was removed, AND the basic essence of the coconut. If you can't find unsweetened coconut, skip it altogether from the recipe. In its place, perhaps add a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of coconut milk to the soup at the end, for flavor.

After you get the spices into the mix, add the broth of your choice. I used chicken this time, as it's what I had on hand. Use vegetable broth to make a vegetarian soup. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Oh, and there's banana in the soup! It's there for texture and slight sweetness. You don't taste banana when you taste the soup. No hint of banana at all!

After the soup has cooked, give it a whiz through the food processor or in the blender. Serve with rice if you like, dollop of plain yogurt and chopped cilantro. You can also serve with cooked lentils for an authentic, protein rich, vegetarian meal!

Curry & Shrimp

Last night I took a recipe from a recent Penzey's catalog and reworked it a bit to make Coconut Curry Shrimp. The recipe had lots of promise, but I think we were thwarted by less than stellar ingredients. Sadly, without driving all over town, I didn't get the best quality shrimp for this dish.

All that being said, this could be a really good curry base for other main ingredients including chicken, lamb and/or vegetables.

Onions and butter with a blend of curry blends, little salt and some pepper.

Onions, curry, diced tomatoes, lemon juice, coconut milk. A great simmer sauce!

I was preparing to cook the shrimp and I was fascinated by the way the butter was melting in the pan.

Sauted shrimp. I seasoned the shrimp with another Penzey's spice blend-Balti Seasoning.

Stir the shrimp into the sauce and simmer for a minute or two. Serve with rice.

Coconut Curry Shrimp
adapted from Penzey's

For 2 large servings

1 lb shrimp, raw, peeled and deveined
1 TB Balti Seasoning
2 TB butter
1 small onion, finely diced
1 tsp, fresh grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 TB Sweet Curry Powder
1 tsp Hot Curry Powder (optional)
1 tsp Garam Masala (optional)
1 TB fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 14 oz can, diced tomatoes, drained (reserve the juice)
1 14 oz can, coconut milk
salt/pepper to taste

1) Clean the shrimp and toss with the Balti Seasoning. Hold in the fridge until ready to cook.

2) In a large pan, saute onions over medium heat, in 2 TB of butter. When translucent, add the garlic & ginger. Cook until fragrant. Add curry powder(s) and Garam Masala. Saute for 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice, simmer for one minute. Add the tomatoes. Stir to incorporate, simmer for 5 minutes.

3) Add the coconut milk and bring to a low simmer. Taste and adjust seasoning.

4) Time to cook the shrimps. In a pan over medium high heat, quickly cook shrimp with oil or butter. Cook for up to 2 minutes per side. If the shrimp are not completely cooked through, it's ok, they will continue to cook in the simmer sauce.

5) Serve hot and over rice.

Catch Up

Sorry for the lack of postings this week. First week back to work after vacation takes a lot out of you. Then a night with no power severely limits what you can do. So far this week...

Quesadillas made with some of Sunday's left-over chicken, roasted peppers and great tortillas from the Cheverly Community Market.

There was also some curry. Here, I've sauted some onions, garlic cloves and ginger slices in olive oil, then added the curry spices, which I allowed to toast in the pan for a minute. Add broth, coconut milk, rice and some chicken...

...allow to cook for awhile, then add some veggies during the last 5-8 minutes, they will steam on top of the rice & chicken...

...creating a warm bowl of coconut chicken casserole! Creamy, spicy, easy and filling!

On Sunday, I made a braised pork roast. I allowed it to cook for 3 hours in beer, tomatoes and onions. I used some of the pork in the quesadillas we had on Monday. Here we had some of the roast, sliced, with mashed potatoes. And later, we'll have the pork a 3rd way! Woo hoo. Cook on the weekend for great meals thru the week. All different!

Indian Butter Sauce

This past weekend was a Cooking Without Borders adventure; featuring Indian Butter Chicken.

Delish.

I made a jumbo batch of sauce...enough for at least four meals. Two batches were packaged up and placed in the freezer. One was for dinner with C&S. The rest was made for a work potluck. The batch for dinner tonight was altered slightly and it was super tasty!

Let's begin.

You start by sauting onions in olive oil.

Add jalapeno, ginger and Garam Masala spice blend.

When you add the spice, the pan will start to dry out.

Add tomato sauce, stir to incorporate. Then the mix is blended until smooth. Chicken broth is added.

Butter and heavy cream are added to the sauce.

Boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced up, are added to the sauce and simmered until cooked.

Here are my two packages of sauce, heading to the freezer for dinner at a later time.

As I mentioned, I wanted to try something special this go around. So I marinaded some chicken in lemon, olive oil, salt, pepper and some Balti spice blend. This was some tasty chicken on it's own!!! But, I chopped it up for the Indian Butter Sauce.

The grilled chicken simmered in the sauce, sharing some of it's grill essence with the sauce. A very pleasing dinner!!!

I know Lady B made this. She shared her comments elsewhere, but I want to share them here as well:

We made this Tuesday night last week and LOVED it so much we called ScottE that night to thank him. Here are my notes:

We had tomato paste on hand, but didn't realize until it came time to put it in that it was "Italian Herb" tomato paste. I don't think it made a bit of difference in the taste of the final dish, it was just something that was kind of funny.

We used salted butter because that's what we had on hand.

We served it with a side of fresh spinach sauteed in olive oil and garlic. This is what I always serve when I make chicken with one of the Trader Joes Indian simmer sauces. We like it.

I had beer with it (I always like beer with Indian food), Lord B had his usual rum and coke. I think beer and Indian food are a great combo.

After our first helping, we got seconds, and the seconds tasted even better. It had kind of cooled a little on the stove and I guess it had more time to sit and absorb the flavors because our seconds were YUM.

One thing I'm glad we did by the recipe, though I was tempted to do differently, was just cooking the outside of the chicken bits and then letting the rest cook in the sauce. It was tempting to fully cook the chicken first then put in the sauce, but I think because I followed the instructions, the chicken was a lot more tender than it would have been had I cooked it fully before.

We are totally ruined on the Trader Joes simmer sauces now... which is a staple in our household for a quick meal. Well, I guess we'll continue to buy them, but every time we eat them I'm sure we'll be like "wow, this does not come close to ScottE's butter chicken."

My mom came over the next day and split the leftovers with me and she LOVED it. And, I know it's authentic, because my brother lives in India, and my mom has visited him there several times, and she said she ate a lot of butter chicken while in India... and this was just as good as what she had over there. A great compliment!!!

Thank you ScottE, we are in love with this recipe and think it would be great for when company comes for dinner. A+++++

Thanks for sharing Lady B! And thanks for the great comments. I had my dinner with beer. Very good. Refreshing. I did make this batch extra mild, again, it's going to be part of a potluck at work, so I wanted to make it accessible for as many people as possible.

Sorta Curry

I've been avoiding the grocery store again. If I am not in the mood to be there, it's my own personal H-E-L-L. Get me out!!!!

But I have to say, I'm starting to run out of stuff to make and will soon find ourselves eating pasta with butter & salt (Mmmm) if I don't go soon.

So last night I figured we were going to have fried eggs, toast and bacon. But I really wasn't in the mood for eggs. And I didn't think I wanted to make dinner. But after foraging through the freezer I had a protein in hand and the beginning thoughts of something else.

I had a package of pork chops frozen solid. Knowing I wouldn't be able to thaw them complete to fry them up, I decided on a braise. But what flavors? Why not something new? We recently had a visit to Penzey's in Rockville, where I picked up a small jar of Balti Seasoning. A wild, highly spiced, but not spicy, curry blend. And it worked Good!

Balti Spiced Braised Pork with Potatoes

Sear your chops (seasoned with salt & pepper) in a deep pan or dutch oven with olive oil. When browned, but not cooked through, remove to a plate and quickly saute one cup of shallots.

When the shallots are translucent, add 1 TB of the Balti seasoning and 1 TB of tomato paste. Stir for one minute.

Add about two cups of chicken broth, stirring and scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the chops into the seasoned broth.

Add three chopped potatoes. They should be mostly submerged in the liquid. Bring to a simmer, cover and place in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. Remove the cover and cook for another 15 minutes.

Pierce the potatoes with a fork or knife to make sure they are tender. Scoop out to a plate, leaving the liquid in the pot. Bring the sauce to a boil and allow to reduce by a third. Swirl in one TB of butter, optional.

Spoon some of the enriched sauce over the chops and potatoes.

This was delicious. The pork played very well with the sweet, fragrant spices of the Balti seasoning. The potatoes were light, tender and a perfect complement to the sauce. All very good. I'll make this again and probably throw some more veg in there, when I have them from the store.

A Major Change for Next Time

I've shared my opinion on Saffron. I know as a wanna-be foodie, I should love it, but I just don't. It's not the first time this spice has ruined a meal for me. Sad. I am not going to write off this recipe. I will make it again, but I will skip the saffron completely and maybe cut back on the mint, just a touch. For all the work you go through to layer the flavors and with all the great aromatic herbs and spices, you don't want any one to be smothered and suffocated by another arrogant spice. This took me an hour and a half to make, and in the end, I had a few bites and pushed my plate away and had toast with peanut butter for dinner. The saffron was just so ridiculously strong, I couldn't do it.

Anyway, I was making Chicken Biryani and I've had it before and it's lovely, but the minute the saffron crosses the threshold from "I can't taste it" to "did you put anything but saffron in here," for me, it became inedible.

Let's get started shall we.

Here's something that went right. The rice is par-boiled in a broth made with ginger, cinnamon, cumin seeds and cardamom. The cardamom should be in pod form, which I didn't have, so I just added a 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom to the water. The broth was highly fragrant and wonderfully spiced.


Another major flavor component is fresh mint. Chop finely and mix with freshly chopped cilantro for the lively herbal blend. Next time I will keep the mint, but cut the amount by half. After the saffron, the other flavor I had was muted mint.


The rice is partially cooked, the mixed with saffron and dried fruits such as currants or golden raisins. This turns the rice golden yellow and releases the saffrons flavors.


Another great flavor level...carmelized onions, garlic and jalapenos...all cooked in butter.


Here's the rice stirred up with the raisins. It looks lovely.


The signature of Biryani is layers...rice mixture, onion mixture...

...then seared chicken thighs and mint/cilantro...

...more onions and more rice. Cook for thirty minutes with some of the flavored broth the rice was cooked in. The chicken will be tender and cooked thru and the rice will be light and fluffy.


The plate. Not the prettiest photo, but it should be full of great flavor. Maybe next time...