After we had our big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving I piled all the bones, a bit of the skin, and some of the meat that I chose not to pick off, into my big crockpot and left it to simmer with a couple of quarts of water. It simmered overnight. By morning I had this lovely big pan full of thick turkey stock. Along with a bunch of little, tender pieces of turkey too (you can see a long strand of it in the left foreground above). After saving the meat pieces, I strained the broth to remove all the bones, skin and some of the little pieces of junky tissue, and it had almost no fat in it.
Going to my to-try file I found a recipe that I’d read on someone else’s blog. I wasn’t so enamored with it as the blogger was (see link in last sentence below). My DH said “you can throw out the rest of that.” Sigh. I haven’t, because I figure I’ll eat it, even if he won’t. It’s rare that I make something my hubby simply won’t eat, but this dish was one. (Not the rice, just the turkey part.)
This reminds me of a story . . . but let me just say about this above recipe, that I altered the ingredients a little. That sets the stage for my story . . . years ago I was good friends with a gal who went to college with me. She married the same week I did (this was in 1962), and we ended up moving close to one another (by happenstance). In a matter of 5 years she had a whole passel of children, was a stay-at-home mom of the first order. Cooked everything from scratch, including all her own bread. One day she made a dessert – let’s just say it was a kind of Boston cream pie dessert – and raved about it, and she shared the recipe with me. A few weeks later I made it, but was short on time and I used a box mix for the yellow cake and a package of quick-cooking pudding for part of the filling. I wasn’t so thrilled with the results and mentioned it to my friend [one of my early lessons – if it’s your friend’s recipe, you don’t always tell your friends everything]. She quizzed me about what I’d done. After telling her how I’d changed the recipe to save time, she was hugely annoyed and informed me that if I wasn’t going to make things exactly the way she gave me the recipe, then she wasn’t going to give me any more recipes! It’s now 45 years later, and I still remember her lecturing me! She and her family moved to Oregon in the 1970’s and we’ve lost touch.
So perhaps, because I changed the recipe I made here today, it wasn’t like the recipe I printed out. The blogger would probably scold me for not adhering to her recipe exactly. She had used fresh, raw chicken, marinated it in yogurt and stuff, then flash-fried it. No sauce at all (there’s no sauce in the picture above, just some nuts on top). Me? Well, I had leftover turkey. So I coated the nice tender bite-sized breast meat pieces with the yogurt mixture and flash fried it too (quickly, as it didn’t need any cooking, just warming). The mixture was a tad on the dry side – but maybe it’s supposed to be that way – it’s a rice dish, not a curry or a stew. But it was too dry for me. So with the leftovers of that I added a jar of Trader Joe’s Thai green chile curry sauce. That almost made it worse!
BUT, the rice was fantastic, so I’m giving you that part. It will be made again. And again. Because of the texture of the rice (it’s actually more like a pilaf) and the flavor (saffron). I made a nice big batch of it and will freeze quart-sized freezer bags of it for future meals. It’s a Nigella Lawson recipe.
Saffron Basmati Rice Pilaf
Recipe By: Originally a Nigella Lawson recipe
Serving Size: 8
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 cups basmati rice
4 cups turkey stock — or chicken broth
1 whole lemon — zest and juice
1 teaspoon saffron threads
3 whole cardamom pods — gently crushed with meat mallet
2 tablespoons pistachio nuts — or other nut for garnish
1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter with olive oil. Once it’s shimmery hot, add the rice, stirring it to coat the rice. Allow to cook, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes. Add the saffron, cardamom seeds, turkey or chicken stock, and the lemon zest and juice.
2. Bring to a boil and cover tightly. Turn heat to very low and cook until the rice has absorbed all the liquid, about 10-15 minutes. Do not over cook the rice.
Per Serving: 226 Calories; 5g Fat (21.8% calories from fat); 5g Protein; 38g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 4mg Cholesterol; 1123mg Sodium.
A year ago: Butternut Squash Soup with Amaretti Cookie Crumbles
Two years ago: Chocolate Mousse in the Blender
Three years ago: Harlequin Pinwheels
. I was serving this with some Indonesian beef sates with coriander (also from the same book, but they weren’t all that memorable, so I won’t be posting that recipe), but the RICE was wonderful. And easy, really. The jasmine rice must be rinsed first, meanwhile you bring to a boil the water (coconut water from a real coconut if you happen to have one lying around – I didn’t), the chicken broth, coconut milk, fresh ginger coins, turmeric (which gives it that unique yellow color, but not enough of it to give any particular flavor), salt and a stalk of lemongrass that has been smashed hard with the flat side of a knife. The rice takes about 15 minutes to cook, so watch the pot carefully (I had to add a bit more water to keep it from burning). Not only is this pretty, but it’s delish too.
. It was just right to serve with the Swordfish Souvlaki I made to go with it.
(by Nicole Aloni), it intrigued me. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was researching what to make for a luncheon I’m doing for 5 couples in a few days and went through this cookbook with more than a passing glance. This was the first recipe I paused over. It had all kinds of spices (not herbs) in it. And the top note said she, the author, who used to be a Hollywood caterer, served this so often she knew it by heart. She suggested it went well with a curry. That led to reading another recipe, and that’s how I came to make the curry dinner last week. (I’m doing a different menu for the luncheon.)
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