Turkey Curry - or "making use of leftovers"

When Knorr sent me the lovely Seasonal Box from Foreman & Field, they also included in it  ingredients with which to make use of some of the leftovers.

I was, initially, intrigued to find a plastic bag containing two Cox's apples and a banana.  I was wondering whether this was someone's idea of a joke, until I put two and two together (with the help of the pineapple) and came up with "curry".  Sure enough, I then found some curry powder, dessicated coconut and double cream.

In the past, I've not had a great deal of success with curries that involve fruit.  So you can imagine, I wasn't overly chuffed about the idea of having to utilise the three fruits together with the leftover turkey.  Well, I was more worried about the loss of the beautiful turkey meat, in the event of the fruity curry turning out to be inedible.  You can only imagine the amount of brain-time I gave to pondering over this recipe.

The original recipe - as given by Marco Pierre White - also involved the use of two Knorr Chicken Stock Pots.  Well, as you know, I'd made some beautiful turkey stock - which rendered the use of the Stock Pots superfluous.  I was torn between doing what I was supposed to - which was follow the recipe to the letter, then blog about the results, versus adapting the recipe to one which was more acceptable to our palates, plus making use of my home-made stock instead of the Knorr Stock Pots.

In the end, it was the quality of the Turkey meat that made my mind up for me.  After all, if we'd all have hated the Marco Pierre-White recipe (which there was every possibility of - sorry, Marco!), the turkey meat would have been wasted.  I very definitely didn't want that to happen - so I adapted it.

We were all very happy with the results.  The curry was considerably hotter than the original would have been and I compromised regarding the fruit.  The apple added the fruity backnotes, with the coconut and cream smoothing the whole effect.  Hubby even ate the leftovers the following day for lunch (not recommended - as the Turkey meat had already been re-heated once, but no rules & regulations come between my man & his curry) - so it must have been good! 

(See also the second Turkey curry recipe - Turkey & Apple Curry which sounds very similar but is in fact very different in flavour).

TURKEY CURRY  (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

1 pink curry onion, sliced thinly
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 small knob of butter
a pinch of sea salt
1 clove garlic, chopped and crushed
1 red chilli, chopped
1 Cox's apple, peeled, de-cored and chopped into fine dice
2-3 heaped tbsp curry powder
2 tbsp dessicated coconut
1 heaped tbsp tomato puree
350ml turkey stock
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dark brown sugar
100ml double cream
pre-cooked Turkey meat, cut into 1" chunks
1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped.


Method :


1.  In a deep frying pan or wok, heat the sunflower oil and add the onions.  Cook on a medium heat until the onions are transparent, then increase the heat and cook until they are just beginning to take on colour.  Reduce the heat to medium and add a pinch of salt and the garlic.  Stir to combine & cook for another minute or so.


2.  Add the chilli and apple dice and stir to combine.  Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes or until the apple begins to soften around the edges.


3.  Add the curry powder, coconut and tomato puree and cook gently, stirring, until completely combined and the oil is beginning to separate.


4.  Add the stock, lemon juice and sugar, to taste.  Stir to combine and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and allow to cook and reduce for 5-10 minutes or until beginning to look sauce-like instead of broth-like.


5.  Add the cream and gently stir.  Do not boil from this point on, but just gently simmer.


6.  Once the sauce has achieved the consistency you prefer, add the turkey chunks and continue to simmer to heat them through.  It is most important that the turkey becomes piping hot.


7.  As a last flourish and to freshen up the colour and flavours, add the chopped coriander and mix through.


8. Serve with boiled or steamed rice.


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You get your Menu Plan all organised - and suddenly, it's Christmas!

Here's the state of this week's menu plan :

That is how much we've had to double-back on what we had planned to do (which was all very nice, but will now have to wait) in favour of working our way through a Foreman & Field Seasonal Gift box, which was very kindly supplied by Knorr.

Stuffed full of goodies!

For all that I was expecting to receive the gift box on Wednesday, I wasn't expecting it to weigh the same as a ten year old boy - nor be bigger than my available worktop!  That white, paper-wrapped lump on the right hand side was a Kelly Bronze Turkey.  The box basically contained everything for a Christmas dinner, plus everything for a Turkey curry on Boxing Day - following a recipe from Marco Pierre White, who is currently working on the "Best of British" campaign with Knorr.

I have been privileged to receive the box in return for cooking with the ingredients and blogging copiously about it.

Incredibly exciting, absolutely amazing and so much fun!

So, following a bit of radical re-evaluation, the week's menus now look like this :

Tues : Son - Pizza, Adults - King Prawn Frittata

Wed : Sausage Casserole

Thur : Scotch Broth with crusty bread

Fri : Fish in batter, hash browns (baked sweet potato for me), peas & baked beans

Sat : High Tea

Sun : Roast Turkey Christmas Dinner

Mon : Turkey Curry á la Marco Pierre White.

The Turkey theme is likely to run over into next week too, as I've plans for a Turkey Leftover Pie, plus soup using the Turkey stock I'll be making.  Well, it was an enormous Turkey - and I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I'll be making it go as far as humanly possible!

Getting back to real life (well, it does seem somewhat surreal to have Christmas arrive suddenly like that!), hubby is the man responsible for Tuesday evening's King Prawn Frittata - and it was one of his truly top-knotch ideas.  Bless him, he's trying to think along the lines of "things that will be good for Jenny's Anti-inflammatory diet" (which Turkey isn't - sssshhh!) which (basically) means ruling out lots and lots of carbohydrates and odd things like raw tomatoes.  This Frittata was really - and I mean really - good.  I'll be blogging it very soon.

So difficult to make this look appetising!

Next on the list was the Sausage Casserole.  Now we've been making Sausage Casseroles for as long as we've been together, hubby and I - and probably even earlier than that.  However, this Sausage Casserole is an adaptation of a Hairy Bikers' recipe for their "Spicy Bean HotPot".  When I first saw it, I liked the spicing involved in it but wasn't keen on the hotpot top of sliced potatoes.  I figured that, if I included some sausages and some mushrooms, it might very easily pass for a spicy Sausage Casserole - and it did, quite beautifully too!  This one will be blogged very soon as well.

My version - hubby's isn't finished yet!

Now we come to tonight's Scotch Broth, which is another of hubby's ideas.  He's taken some details from my Scotch Broth recipe, but is doing his own take on the dish.  He's in the process of making it right now, as I type, so I can't give you any clues as to how it turned out just yet!

We're having fish on Friday for once, but purely co-incidentally, as we're trying feverishly to reduce the amount of things that are roosting in the freezer and make room for the Turkey!  This is the fish in batter that we should have had last Monday, but it got elbowed out of the way by something else.  Still, it'll be nice to have a plain old easy "after school" dinner for once.  I'll be making myself a baked Sweet Potato to have instead of the potato hash browns, and be having peas instead of the baked beans - which is something else that is oddly inflammatory.

From here on in, we're into the Knorr Seasonal Box!

Just how much does that Stilton make your mouth water?

Saturday's High Tea is going to be a tongue-tinglingly, tongue-tastic array of smoked salmon and salmon caviar done three ways (on blinis, as a mousse on pumpernickel and in pinwheels), along with some spectacular Colston Bassett Stilton with grapes, Fenland Celery and crackers.  We're also going to provide some tasters of other cheeses for son & heir who is still undecided as to whether he's a Stilton fan or not.

Dessert will be a lemon & raspberry tart with cream.  All of which is designed to form the type of buffet you might be lucky enough to be presented with on Christmas Day evening.

Is that a Turkey leg, I see peeping out?

Hubby has very generously offered to run the cooking of the "Christmas Day Dinner" on Sunday, which has relieved me of lots of worry as to how the heck I was going to do it.  Apparently I'll be allowed to sit and direct operations plus do whatever can be done sitting down.  It'll be a team effort - which Christmas Dinners often are, if you're lucky!

Monday's dinner will be the first after-Christmas Turkey Leftover Curry I've ever cooked.  Most leftover Turkey in my house, gets used up in copious amounts of sandwiches - so it'll be fun to see what can be done with Marco Pierre White's recipe!

I doubt very much that I'll be sticking to his recipe, as it really doesn't sound like our type of curry at all, as it contains both apple and banana.  Plus, the curry powder that has been supplied, although it smells beautifully fragrant, doesn't give the impression of having much chilli kick.  Hence, I'll be using the ingredients as a base and freestyling thereafter to try and tweak the curry towards more of a genuine curry, as opposed to a curry-flavoured Turkey stew.  Fingers crossed!

So, there you have it.  I doubt very much that I'll be doing any other incidental bits of cooking in the meantime, as I'll be too busy cooking and blogging about it!  As it is, I've had to wade through the backlog of blogs that were waiting to be done, while hubby took care of the cooking, so as to get up to date for the approaching Knorr blogs!  Don't, for a second, think I'm complaining - far from it - it's fun to be busy.  Cooking and writing about it is, after all, what I enjoy doing.

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