Its Turkey Time, So Let's Get Cooking!
Turkey will be everywhere very, very soon. Having said that, if they weren’t in the shops already, I wouldn’t be writing this now with a cooked turkey split into, well I’m not sure exactly how many different dishes, yet.
Why did I decide to see how many meals I could make out of one 5.10kg turkey? Simple answer is, because I could.
More complicated answer is that I can’t abide food to be wasted, any food, at any time.
Not sure if I’ve written this before, let’s face it, my memory may be a little bit faded so I could have written this story many, many times before.
Even so!
I had a friend who, each Christmas, bought and cooked a turkey for her family festive meal. Each Christmas her family would eat all of the white meat, and by the days end, the carcass was dispatched as waste, to the outside dustbin.
You understand, that when I say “carcass” I refer to every bit of the turkey except the two breasts.
Now, I don’t know about you, but in my house that is almost tantamount to profanity.
My unwritten rule is that there should be as little “waste food” as I can possible achieve. Maybe I should make that a little clearer, very little waste really means: If there is any waste food at all, I feel like an under achiever.
Are you like this?
Luckily, the lovely Mr G is a non-waster too.
Now, I’m not talking just cooked meals, and the leftovers from those, I love a bit of bubble and squeak as well as the next person. What I’m talking about are these and all of the other bits of food that I think others would normally throw away.
Let’s take a cauliflower.
Love, love, love them any way they are cooked or even raw.
What about the leaves and stalks that get cut off when preparing that plump white cauliflower for cooking?
A question for you; how many of the outer leaves of a cabbage do you throw away when getting it ready for cooking and what is your criteria for not cooking them?
Is it because they are rotting and manky?
Maybe they are too tough, too much dirt on them? Or is it because someone said that you should throw them away instead of using them as food?
I’m guessing that it will possibly be the last, and as a woman of my time, I totally understand that explanation.
Now, those leaves, never hit the waste bin.
The same with the beautiful cauliflower.
It’s traditionally been the case that the outwear leaves and inner stalk of a cauliflower are thrown away. Once again, I ask you why.
Those leaves are food.
A couple of ideas from my usual cauliflower day.
Once I’ve used the white flower, those leaves and stalk are up for grabs.
Leaves and stalk for a curry, for a soup, chopped thinly and used in a coleslaw instead of cabbage and if you just want to eat it, use it instead of cabbage and get it on your plate with the Sunday roast.
See how it goes, just think a little differently about “waste” and begin to call it food instead, and you’ll be amazed how many ways you can use it to cook and eat.
In our home it’s called “the next meal”
Now, back to the turkey and the multiple ways of using it without waste, or at least without using just the white bits.
If I’m lucky, you’ll read this before Christmas and you can plan meals around using up the rest of the turkey.
Let’s start with the usual way of cooking a turkey, the roast.
When I mentioned to the lovely Mr G that it was turkey time, I could see his eyes sparkle at the thought. He is a very big fan of turkey, especially the white meat.
Not me, I’m a grey turkey meat lady. I like it because it has more juice and for me more taste.
Not everyone’s choice.
Are you a leg or breast person?
I like my turkey cooked in a really simple way.
Seasoned well and roasted until cooked.
First half of the cooking covered in foil which I remove for the second half of the cooking.
Oh, and how long depends in the size with the cooking times on the turkeys packaging.
I’m going to post each recipe as a separate post, that way I can make the dishes and write the posts as the week goes by.
Let’s start with the first
Enjoy Your Sweet Life
Turkey & Stuffing Sausage Rolls
Golden brown and ready to eat
What You Need
Filling
300g leftover turkey – chopped really finely – See Tip Box
The cooked giblets – See Tip Box
200g Sage and onion stuffing mix – prepared according to the packet or leftover stuffing
1 large onion – finely chopped
2 Heaped Tablespoons- Fig chutney - See Tip Box
20g butter – To cook onion
2 teaspoon horseradish
25g Sundried Tomatoes
Maldon Sea Salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste
1 egg – beaten and added to 2 tablespoons of water for egg wash
1 pack of Ready Rolled Puff pastry
Flour for rolling.
Sesame seeds to sprinkle on top before cooking.
Mixture at each side of the pastry, cut down the middle and egg wash the edges to fold over and seal
How It’s done
Oven 180c
Heat the butter in a frying pan and cook the onions on a low to medium heat until soft and cooked.
Put the cooked turkey and giblets in the food processor along with the tomatoes and the fig chutney. Let it pulse until it resembles a very course mince.
Place the cooked onions in a bowl, add the rest of the filling ingredients to the same bowl and mix well to combine all the flavours
Set the bowl aside and roll the puff pastry out.
Take some of the filling mixture and roll it out into fat sausage – See Tip Box
Place the mixture down each long edge of the pastry, cut the pastry down the middle and use the egg wash to seal the pastry as you fold it over.
Press the pastry edges to seal it.
Cut the sausage roll to the sizes you want, place on the oven tray which is lined with non-stick parchment
Use a sharp knife to score the tops, brush the pastry with the egg wash, sprinkle over the sesame seeds and place into the hot oven
Bake until the pastry is a golden brown and the inside is piping hot – approximately 20-25 minutes – See Tip Box
Egg washed, sprinkled with sesame seeds and ready for the hot oven.
Tip Box
Turkey Preparation – For this recipe, make sure that the cooked turkey is chopped really small to resemble turkey mince. I made it easy on myself and put it in the food processor along with some of the other ingredients.
Filling- Put as much filling into the pastry as makes you happy. I like my sausage rolls thick, so like a lot of filling.
Fig Chutney – If you don’t have any of this, no matter, use what you have. What about cranberry sauce you’ve been using all over the Christmas period.
Oven – All ovens are different so adjust cooking time accordingly
Giblets – love them or hate them, never waste them. They are great to add extra flavour so add them to as many things as you can
Ready to eat .
