Recicember Day 28: Turkey Curry

As eating turkey for Christmas dinner is traditional in the UK, it is quite common to have leftover turkey well into January (and possibly beyond). And so the internet searches begin for leftover turkey curry recipes…

All I’m looking for is a quick turkey curry recipe. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top, just a straightforward simple turkey curry recipe. So with that in mind, we’ll probably be avoiding Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith, because I said so.

But we might take a look at this one from the Hairy Bikers.

Well, actually it’s from Abdul Yaseen, but the Hairy Bikers seem to have included it in their Christmas party show. I can’t confirm this as I didn’t watch it, and more importantly, it seems to have been broadcast in 2011, so I can’t even watch it on iPlayer.

Turkey Curry From Leftovers!

Well, the turkey is a leftover. The rest of the stuff isn’t. I mean, who has “leftover” cardamom? Let’s empty the spice drawer!

Turkey curry spices

And speaking of cardamom, here’s where I made my first “mistake”. The recipe calls for each of the spices to be dry roasted one by one. Ain’t nobody got time for that. And I ain’t got no star anise either. Nor do I have enough turkey. Abdul, buddy, 500g of turkey isn’t leftovers. It is a small turkey in itself. A tur-turkey-key, if you will. I had about 170g of turkey, so I put in about a third of everything the recipe asked for. Except the things I didn’t have.

Roasting spices

Next up, we begin to suffer from let’s-put-50-things-in-one-step syndrome, otherwise known as MKD-IKEA disease. So in goes garlic…

Garlic

…onion and ginger (ground, because a ginger root is something I don’t have)…

Onion and ginger

…spices and jalapenos…did I mention I didn’t have any chillies? No? Oh. Jalapenos from a jar made a decent substitute.

Jolly peenoes

Then a red bell pepper, and some tomato puree…

Tomato puree

…and the turkey.

Turkey in the turkey curry!

And then just stir it around a bit so it all gets warmed up. Lob it in a bowl and you’re done.

Lob in a bowl

Turns out it’s a curry that doesn’t have a sauce like gravy. Or maybe I just did it “wrong”. Certainly didn’t serve it with rice, because even a third of the original recipe was more than enough for a meal.

Tastes delicious though, and very spicy – but is it the best turkey curry ever? Maybe, maybe not. You’ll have to make your own to find out because you’re not getting any of mine!

TL;DR: Spicy turkey curry. Burn your gob off.

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