Regional Recipes Roud-up: Turkey!!

I think this was the best round of Regional Recipes yet. The participants did such a great job at showcasing the flavors and textures of Turkish cuisine. Every one of these submissions have been added to my must-try-soon list. I think you'll enjoy them too.

Hamsi Tava (crispy fried anchovies) submitted by Momgateway. I love anchovies in all forms, but fried anchovies are icing on the cake!





Cerez Tavugu (Circassian chicken) submitted by Mary of One Perfect Bite. Mary says Circassian chicken is like a western chicken salad, only more flavorful and nutritious. It’s a dish everyone should make at least once before they die. Now that's a strong endorsement!





Nohut salatasi (Turkish chickpea salad) submitted by Wandering Chopsticks. All our favorite ingredients—chickpeas, olives, onions, tomatoes—tossed with a zingy lemon dressing.





Lamb Kebab submitted by yours truly. Grilled lamb patties rolled in flatbread with a cool yogurt sauce. Hits the spot at 3AM after a night of merrymaking.





Hunkar Begendi (beef stew with eggplant puree) submitted by Joanne of Eats Well with Others. The surprise in this dish is the eggplant puree. It’s made by combining roasted, mashed eggplant with a smooth béchamel. That’s a new combination I’ll definitely be trying soon.




And last, but definitely not least, [eatingclub]vancouver showed their culinary prowess by submitting not one, but 5 dishes! Talk about Turkish extravaganza!

Let’s start with the borek with beef filling. Phyllo dough stuffed with ground beef and baked to a golden brown. They get bonus points for the beautiful, rustic presenation ☺



Etli biber dolmasi (stuffed peppers with groundmeat). A filling, familiar favorite.




Turkish bulgur kofte. Dense dumplings served with a garlicky yogurt sauce.




Mualle (eggplant and lentil stew with pomegranate molasses). Creamy eggplant, earthy lentils and a subtle punch courtesy of pomegranate molasses—an exotically delicious dish!



Kisir (Turkish bulgur tabbouleh). Take note guys, this is a dish that can cause a little excitement with the ladies.




Now aren't these submissions impressive? I hope you'll click through and check out the posts. You may learn something. I certainly did!

For our next region, I choose Korea!

Wandering Chopsticks will be hosting the next round. If you'd like to participate, please read the guidelines, then send submissions, with a photo, to wanderingchopsticks(at)gmail(dot)com. by June 15th.

The Danish Cousin to the Swedish Meatball

As promised, here’s the recipe for Danish frikadeller, the cousin to Swedish meatballs. Using a food processor, they are insanely easy to throw together. Cooking them takes all of twenty minutes if you do it in the oven. The only real work is weighing out the portions and working with the mixture, which is annoyingly sticky (but makes for a moist meatball).

I promise, your fellow potluckers will love these.

Frikadeller
makes approx. 30 frikadeller (2oz each)

• 3 slices bread, torn into pieces
• ½ cup milk
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1½ tsp kosher salt
• 3 pounds ground pork (or mix of pork and veal or turkey)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ground allspice

Put the bread in a small bowl with the milk. It will only take a couple of minutes to soak up the milk.

In a food processor, puree the bread, onions, spices and eggs to a uniform mixture. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the ground meat(s). Mix well. It’s easiest to use your (clean!) hands, but don’t squeeze the meat. The mixture will be very sticky.

Using a food processor produces a nice batter to mix with the ground meat.

Traditionally pork and veal are used, but here I used pork and turkey. Don't be alarmed if the mixture is very sticky.

This recipe makes a lot of meatballs, and it would take you a long time to fry up. I like to cook mine in the oven on a rimmed, greased cookie sheet. For 2oz meatballs, it takes about 20 minutes in my convection oven at 375º. Don’t be alarmed if a lot of liquid runs out, the finished product will still be moist. Allow them to cool slightly before removing them with a spatula. Don’t serve these piping hot; they taste best warm or at room temperature.

Trust me, you don't want to spend half the day frying these babies up. Baking them is quick and painless.

The traditional way to eat these are with Danish rye bread or potatoes and pickled beets or pickled red cabbage. However, for a more seasonal and festive dish, you can serve them with cranberry chutney or tomato jam.

If you don’t have a potluck to attend, no worries. These bad boys are well suited for freezing. Place them on a cookie sheet in the freezer overnight, then throw them into two layers of Ziploc freezer bags. To reheat, they can go straight from the freezer into a 350º oven. Or you can thaw them in the fridge overnight and fry them in a skillet over medium-low heat until heated through.

I prefer reheating them in a skillet because they will form a nice crust (see picture below).

When fried on a skillet, they form nice crusts. Yum.

Still delicious when oven-baked.

Join the Clean-Out-the-Freezer Challenge!

I’ve decided to start one of my New Year’s resolutions early. I’m going to de-clutter my life. It doesn’t take a Feng Shui practitioner to tell me that a cluttered house leads to a cluttered life. Stuff is literally spilling out into my arms every time I open a door or cabinet. Due to a DIY home renovation project with no foreseeable end in sight, our square footage has been reduced by over half and I’m tired of holding on to things that I might-maybe-perhaps use one day. Besides, I need to make room for all the Christmas gifts I’ll be getting (just in case you’re wondering what YOU should get me I want, click on the Amazon button in the right margin).

Since the kitchen was the room that took me over the edge, I started the big purge there. I’ve amassed a nice stash to donate, but I’m not stopping there. I’m challenging myself to clean out the freezer and pantry. For the next 7 days, I’m going to use at least 1 thing I have in the freezer. The next week I’m going to do the same with the pantry. Anybody wanna join me? Resolutions are so much easier to keep when you have friends to help you along!

Miscellaneous junk. Why did I hold on to this stuff for all these years??

How could Hubby think this is junk?! It's got the real vendor label printed on the mug, complete with chemical formula and molecular weight. I'm taking it back to work, where it'll be the coolest mug in the office.

Day 1 of clean-out-the-freezer challenge: hot and sour soup with shitake mushrooms, leftover turkey and rice. I made the base for the soup back in August. All I had to do was add the mushrooms, tomatoes, turkey and rice.

Never Say Never

I rarely eat turkey. It’s usually dry, as in, use-it-for-kindling dry. It’s also pretty flavorless. To get around these shortcomings, I usually brine the meat, and since that is a whole process, I only do it once a year. Too much work for too little payoff, if you ask me. So you can imagine my surprise when I tasted the world’s juiciest and most flavorful turkey burger. I loved it. Sonny loved it. Even Hubby loved it, despite his reservations about turkey burgers.

The recipe is from Sara Moulton, and can be found here. It’s very easy to make, but does require a little more time than just forming patties. The only modification I made was that I ran the cooked onions and peppers in a food processor before mixing with the ground turkey (if Sonny were to even suspect the presence of onions or peppers in his food, he wouldn’t touch it). I didn’t do Sara’s salsa either, but threw together avocado, sweet onion and cherry tomatoes instead.

Turkey Burgers
1 lbs ground turkey
1 small onion, finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, finely sliced
1 tbs creole seasoning*
1 tsp salt
fresh ground black pepper to taste

In a skillet over medium heat, add about 1 tbs oil. When hot, add the onion and red pepper. Cook until soft and caramelized, which could take 20 minutes. Using a food processor, blend until you get a paste. Put in a large bowl and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the creole seasoning and salt. Blend well. Add the ground turkey and blend well (don’t squeeze the meat). Form into patties. If you plan to cook on a grill, make the patties about ½ inch thick. If you are going to do it indoors, a thicker patty is fine because you can finish them in the oven. I recommend chilling the patties in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (these patties are softer than ground beef patties, so it helps to chill them).

I’ve cooked these burgers both on the grill and on the stovetop/oven. Both ways work well, but grilling gives a better flavor. If grilling, resist the urge to turn the patties too often because they will break. If doing them indoors, cook them in a skillet over medium-high heat. For thicker patties, you may need to start them on the stove and finish them in the oven.

*I make my own using Emeril’s “formulation”: 2 1⁄2 tbs paprika, 2 tbs salt, 2 tbs garlic powder, 1 tbs each black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, dried oregano, and dried thyme. Keep in an airtight container (like a Ziploc bag) in a dry place.