Ground turkey. The very idea of it used to make me scoff. It didn’t seem like a real ingredient. Where was there a cuisine that traditionally used ground turkey? Wasn’t it just a substitute for other, better tasting meats that health conscious people could use to dumb their food down while ostensibly making it “healthier”? Like turkey Italian sausages: they don’t taste as good as pork sausages, and the texture is all wrong.
Still, ground turkey goes on sale at the supermarket pretty regularly, so if I could find a use for the stuff it could become a cost-effective part of an ostensibly healthy diet. Was there a way to make this inexpensive, low fat source of protein delicious? I started playing around with the stuff in my kitchen. As a substitute for ground beef in a red pasta sauce, turkey proved to be unsatisfying as Italian sausages made from it – too dry and bland. Turkey burgers weren’t an experience I’d seek out again, for the same reason. Then I got to thinking: who in the world eats turkey often? Middle Easterners do. On a trip to Paris last year I bought Döner sandwiches on the street from Lebanese immigrants, and the meat was a combination of veal and turkey. Why not try Middle Eastern spicing with the stuff? That direction met with success: these Turkish style meatballs work so well with they don’t leave me pining for the more classic lamb and beef combination. I serve them with tzatziki, which adds a bit of much needed moisture. A tomato and cucumber salad and bread (or a pilaf) nicely rounds a meal out in a Turkish/Greek vein.
Turkish Style Turkey Kofteries
(serves four)
20.8 oz package (or scant 1 ½ lbs) ground turkey
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup flat leaf parsley (or mint), chopped
tsp salt
Tbs ground allspice
tsp ground cumin
tsp ground coriander seed
ground black pepper, to taste
pinch crushed red pepper
2 Tbs oil for frying
Mix together all ingredients by hand in bowl while heating frying pan. Wash hands, and add oil to pan. Form meatballs by hand and place in hot pan. Let cook on one side until slightly browned. Turn meatballs with a spoon in pan to brown the other side until equally browned. Reduce heat and roll meatballs on their sides, turning every couple minutes until you’re sure they’re completely cooked. Plate and serve.
(Tip: If you keep a dedicated coffee grinder for spices you can buy your spices whole. They'll last longer and taste fresher when you grind them yourself. This allows you to keep a wide variety of spices in your cupboard without worrying about them losing their flavor if you don't use some of them very often).
Tzatziki
(feeds four as a side dish that’s something between a sauce and a salad)
1/2 seedless cucumber or 2 Kirby or 3 Persian cucumber
1 generous cup yogurt (Greek is better, as full fat is better over 2% over nonfat)
tsp salt
½ clove garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbs olive oil
Juice of ½ lemon (optional)
Grate cucumber into serving bowl. Add salt and mix by hand. Let stand for 30 min. while you do something else, such as make the meatballs in the recipe above. Squeeze cucumber in bottom of bowl by hand, draining the juice into the sink. Stir in remaining ingredients. Either serve immediately or cover and let sit in fridge for up to 24 hours (it gets better with time up to that point). Dunk bread into it or use as a sauce for meatballs (or grilled meat).
