Turkey frica-curry

Friday 21/1/2005

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Diary and Notes

I am now over 1/4 the way through my Nosh-Blog challenge. A new challenge has been suggested which I am willing to take up. The email suggested the following:

A dish from a different city/region of Britain a day.
Jon's tour of England (you could do Ireland, Wales, Scotland as different weeks, Wales could be a little difficult for a week although Glamorganshire sausages are not too bad).
Scouse anyone?

The email suggested cooking scouse, but I wont, as it's not very nice.

Anyway, on to today's blog:

Something weird happened today, I was checking Google to see if I could find anything humurous to say about what I had for dinner last night and without noticing, ended up at one of my own web pages. "What's this bollocks?" I thought, and then reaslised it was me.

So what did I type into Google? 'Turkey fricasee'. The first site that came up was really annoying and involved answering a questionaire before letting you in, which I never bothered to do. When I hit the back button the site had irritatingly disabled it and wouldn't let me out. These people should be burned alive for their crime. The second site on the list was my Thanksgiving meal of turkey in beer and mustard

Yes, I had turkey for dinner again yesterday and made a sort of fricassee. "But Jon, wasn't it a Friday and shouldn't you have been eating curry?"

Here's the problem: This is American food week and American's, as far as I can tell, don't do curry. I have tried emailing my American pals, checking recipe books/websites etc.... but nothing that is truly a curry ever came up. People suggested Cajun food such as crayfish etouffee or dirty rice (I was sent a recipe for crayfish etouffee and it sounds really good and I'll cook it later in the year), others Mexican food, but nobody could find anything that was both American and curry at the same time. So, like always, I improvised.

Realising I hadn't had turkey for some time (the last time being 13/12/2005 Turkey with chocolate and mandarins and only once before then on Thanksgiving) I thought it was about time to have another go. Turkeys come from America (why isn't it turkies?) and anything made with them must in some way be American so I thought I'd be in the clear. What I tried to do was to make something pretty American and then amend it in the manner that seems to be the way in which American websites advise making curry from things. I checked out a few websites and soon realised that when it comes to curry and America, pretty much anything goes. Now I'm not having a go at the American's, they don't share the British/Indian cultural heritage, and much like Mexican food in Britain tends to be nothing like real Mexican food and is pretty dire, American ideas of curry seem to be really odd and generally quite unpleasant, check out particularly: What I had for dinner and especially Soy Curry Sauce which is perhaps the worst recipe for anything (not just curry sauce) I have ever read. So, what I did was just to make a simple turkey fricassee and add some Bolsts curry powder (see 13/1/2005 for some notes on Bolsts) and some fresh coriander. I have to say, for a curried turkey fricassee it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. I would never cook it again, it is just a product of curry and America week. It had a sort of 1970's feel to it, almost something our mothers might have made from left over Christmas turkey (without the coriander of course). I managed to wolf down quite a plateful with some rice and chapattis. I also had a jar of cranberry sauce on hand just to add to the experience. All in all, an odd fusion meal that tasted a lot better than it sounds.

Cake Blog

Carrot cake: An old Americna classic. When carrot cake first appeared in British health food shops some years ago everybody went, "eergh!" Now it's quite popular and available everywhere. I got mine from Sainsbury's and it wasn't too bad at all.

Menu

Curried Turkey Fricassee

Rice

Cranberry Sauce

Chappatis

Ingredients

Vegetable oil, onion, carrot, celery, turkey breast, nutmeg, black pepper, salt, Bolsts curry powder, cream, coriander leaf.

Preparation

Finely dice the onion, carrot and celery and sweat in a little oil. Chop the turkey into chunks and add to the pan and brown for about five minutes. Add a little nutmeg, a good spoonful or two of Bolsts curry powder and a dash of water. Stew gently for about 10 mins. Stir in a little cream to make a sauce, sprinkle the coriander in and eat.

JCBorresen@gmail.com