August 30, 2010

Curried Ground Turkey with Potatoes

  Looks good, but...

Where is the flavor??

I have to say I am pretty disappointed in this dish. It seriously needed some help. I got the recipe from Simply Recipes, which is one of those blogs that anyone interested in food blogs reads, so I had high hopes. It wasn't bad and it did taste better at lunch the next day, but just didn't have that Indian food WOW that I was expecting.

The first problem I ran into was that the turkey did not brown. I used my big Le Creuset pot which always cooks things perfectly, and I had the heat up high, so it should have browned nicely, but it didn't. It just stayed its sad almost-white color and ended up being bland and a little overcooked (which happened because I was waiting for it to brown). Then, the onions did not brown either. Again, in theory they should have. But this didn't bother me as much as the turkey because soft onions taste just fine. 

I thought things were looking up with the addition of the ginger and garlic - it smelled amazing! Then all the spices went in and it smelled even better! Perfumed the whole kitchen! (Although the turmeric has left its yellow stain on everything!) Halfway through the potatoes simmering, I took off the lid to stir and check on it and the water was all gone and the spices were sticking to the bottom of the pot! Easy fix though, I just added more water and gave the bottom a good scraping. What I should have added at this point was a handful of salt, as the finished dish desperately needed it.

I will certainly try this again, but may add chickpeas or cauliflower and will definitely make it a point to season every step of the way. I don't think salting a dish at the end has the same effect as salting at all the different levels along the way.

On the upside, the store-bought naan was great!

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