Take me or leave me? Thai spiced turkey burger weirdness

I love to cook, really I do. Part of that is about choosing new recipes, tweaking old and generally finding my way in the sea of available ingredients. That said, since I came into my own cooking wise in what? 2007 or so, I've changed both the way I cook and eat. For the better, I hope. In 2007 as my old flatmate will testify, I ate a lot of stir fries, made up of salmon or chicken and a shedload of veggies mainly. So this weekend I decided to retro, back to 2007 – the year of the stir fry. Instead of salmon or chicken and dousing the veg in honey and soy I decided to experiment with my protein and make something akin to a spiced turkey burger – equally you could make this in any shape and find a better name for it. I would if I could think of one. Really I would.

It all sounds good so far doesn’t it? But it wasn’t, and it’s not often I blog about something I cook that is a disaster, however, this fits that bill. There are so many things I would do differently about this meal. Oh so many. Here’s the list in fact:

·        The turkey burgers were epically dry – I chose to make these out of turkey for two reasons 1) It’s so much  cheaper than chicken and Asda were out of free range chicken and 2) It’s low fat, and thus good for the diet – but dear lord it was dry. I’ve been wracking my brains to try and find ways to make them less dry but not less diet friendly. I’m failing.

·        Freeze dried noodles do not last for ever. I brought these over from M’s house when he moved. They were off.

·        M doesn’t like coriander. To be fair he didn’t know this, so I didn’t know this but it’s never complimentary when your partner asks why their dinner tastes of Fairy liquid. Epic.

But apparently I’m still blogging it. No, I’m not sure why either.

Unlike most things I cook, you really do need a food processor for this. Or use turkey mince and chop stuff like your life depended on it

Weird turkey burger things: consider this a challenge to make them non disastrous if you will.

3 Turkey breast fillets

Bunch spring onions

3 cloves garlic

Lemongrass, bruised and chopped

1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped

Thumb sized piece of ginger, grated

Bunch coriander chopped (or not as the case may be)

3 dessert spoons fish sauce

Veg for a stir fry – I used cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, courgettes, edamame beans and beansprouts

2 portions noodles (I usually use rice as they’re my favourite but was being thrifty and using up the ones in the cupboard)

Soy sauce and a splash of honey

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C and put a baking tray in there to heat up too

Whizz the garlic, chilli, ginger, lemongrass and spring onions up in the food processor. Add the turkey and fish sauce and pulse until the mixture starts to come together (you don’t want it too chunky but neither do you want it to look like baby food)

Make these into meatball/ burger/ sausage* (delete as appropriate) shapes using wet or (and I just thought of this) lightly oiled hands.

Take the baking tray out of the oven and put the burger-y things on it, spacing them a little way apart. I made about 12 mini burger sized ones. Return back to the oven and cook for 30 minutes

While they’re cooking, stir fry your veg in a little oil with added garlic, chilli and ginger.

Cook the noodles and stir through the vegetables. Add honey and soy while the pan is on the heat and stir everything through.

Serve with the turkey burger-y things, in bowls. Try to ignore your boyfriend desperately trying to eat them. Also try to ignore the fact that the noodles taste weird and the turkey is dry.

To be fair, if M hadn’t discovered that he hated coriander and the noodles weren’t past their best it would have been really tasty. If a little dry. I would definitely do it again for me. In fact I might make up a batch for the freezer and have them with sweet chilli sauce when M’s away. Oooh! Plan!

Meal Planning Monday: The Poorly Pantry edition

Last week there was no meal plan from the Pantry as initially I was supposed to be working away all week and then I was felled, swiftly and painfully by a migrainey virus thing. That's right folks a week of migraines. I seem to be doing better now, and am chancing my arm at a meal plan for next week, despite only having eaten toast and marmite this week.

Guides and Brownies are back this week, and I think M returns to Welsh too, so normal levels of hectic-ness have been resumed. Also, January is January and I am seriously skint, so am eating my way through the freezer and pantry. Care packages may be required by the end of the month.

I've checked what's in my veg box next week, so have planned with that in mind.

Lunches are soup, I made a batch of fridge bottom soup the week before last which owing to being poorly ended up being frozen.

Monday: Pantry pasta

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Stir fried veg, chicken and noodles. I use rice noodles for this as I much prefer them to egg noodles. Instead of buying a sauce I use soy, sherry and honey to make a home made stir fry sauce. I know I've got onions and peppers in the fridge, but could do with picking up some cheap greens to bulk it out.

Thursday: Is it too much to hope for leftovers? If not, M is at Welsh so I might have an omlette

Friday: Reverting to student standbys is normally my 'too much month at the end of my money' standpoint but I've got some green lentils doing very little in the pantry, so I think it's time to bring the lentil ragu out from retirement and may even splash out on some chorizo! Madness I know.

Be sure to pop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is cooking this week. And while we're at it, what are your frugal, end of the month standby dishes?

Doorbells, and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles (ish): Worldfoods Challenge no 2 - Pad Thai

I'm now happily singing My favourite things while I type this out, sadly I'm not in my nighty, nor am I surrounded by many small children harmonising beautifully with me. Still, you take what you can get.

Last week I was visited by my friend Louise, this week it's Lauren's turn, and last night I made us the second of my Worldfood fusion taste team challenge meals. Pad Thai. I was slightly concerned again as to the sweetness of the sauce, and the inauthenticity (it's a word) of my recipe, but without blowing my own trumpet it was fab. And made whilst exhausted, so doubly impressive when you think about it.

I should add a disclaimer here. I love Pad Thai. A lot. It's my favourite thing to order in Thai restaurants, and I never make it because I just think it won't live up to my expectations. Plus the ingredient list to make it from scratch is more offputting than sugar syrup ever was.

I really didn't want to have to shop specially for this, but have to recommend Waitrose's Thai section. Bearing in mind that the Whetstone Waitrose is tiny, I managed to pick up rice noodles, dried galangal, fish sauce and palm sugar. I then failed to use any of them save for the rice noodles. Fail. But I was pleased I picked those up, as the need for beansprouts, limes and peanuts escaped my tiny brain entirely, so as you will notice this recipe is utterly without them.

Pantry Pad Thai

2 cloves garlic
1 red chilli chopped
4 spring onions, whites finely chopped, greens sliced up like you would green beans
1 red pepper sliced
1 sweetcorn
300g mushrooms sliced
3 chicken thighs thinly sliced
flat leaf parsley
1 head brocolli
1 bottle Worldfood Pad Thai sauce
Juice of 1 lime
2 eggs, beaten
200g rice noodles cooked as per pack instructions

Stir fry the garlic, chilli, and spring onion whites in a flavourless oil until you can start to smell them
Add the chicken to the pan and cook until browned
Add the vegetables and cook lightly, stirring all the while
Shift the contents of your pan to one side and pour the eggs in and cook, then stir through
Add the cooked noodles, and stir through
Add the sauce, parsley and lime and serve. I kept the fish sauce and palm sugar on the side meaning to add them if I felt it needed a bit extra but it really didn't, the sauce had enough tang from the tamarind to mean that I didn't need to adjust the seasoning.

Quick and easy, and as I used the end of my veg box as well as some chicken in the freezer, a really well priced meal. What I made served three of us generously with a large tupperware of leftovers for Mark's lunch today. Perfect.

Despite loving this (and I actually hesitated to offer Mark the leftovers as I would have quite happily demolished them) I would like to try it again with prawns, coriander, beansprouts and peanuts as it was so tasty that I think the additions would really set it off. It's rare you'll see me say this, but I would happily go out and buy this again purely to the ends of adding Pad Thai this way to my simple suppers, as even with a bought sauce it's cheaper and healthier than my local Thai takeaway.

Global Fusion Taste Team: Garlic, chilli and ginger

There's been a little bit of excitement in the Pantry of late, which should hopefully produce some interesting posts going forwards. Today is the first in a series of posts in my role as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team. I answered a callout on Twitter for team members (I'm always a bit reticent to do that as I'm never sure I'm 'good' enough - well that's not true, I know I am, I just know that this blog and it's little following *waves* aren't up there with the big hitters) Anyway, this week a big box arrived, which had he been here would have led Mark to roll his eyes and ask if I've been online shopping at Lush again. In it was, a pinny, a recipe notebook (stationery and a pinny - can Worldfoods read my mind?) as well as a huge range of sauces and dips for me to try, work with and feed Mark with over the coming weeks. Excited? I am.

So Wednesday night loomed and courtesy of a meeting at work being cancelled we had a night in together. Off to Sainsos we went with the first challenge looming in my mind. It involved a garlic, chilli and ginger, dipping, or stir fry sauce. Having spent much of the recent weeks in hotels a stir fry really appealed, with lots of veg and some brown basmati rice.

Ginger, garlic and trinity are often hailed as the 'holy trinity' (apologies for the blasphemy) of Chinese cooking, and if I'm just doing a bog standard stir fry I will press or chop a couple of cloves of garlic, grate variable amounts of ginger and chop up a chilli as my base. Initially I thought the jar would work as a sub for these, but on sniff test and finger taste I felt it needed a bit more oomph for my tastebuds. On investigation, the recipe suggestion was to add more, so lesson learned - READ things in advance Penelope. I should also say that the last time I did a stir fry out of a jar it was about 10 years ago and I intially worried that it was going to be that incredibly cloying sweet synthetic taste I remembered, however this was light, fresh and not at all syrupy.

I should point out here that Mark likes things significantly milder than I do so I actually made two generous dishes from one jar of sauce, and both those dishes did two solid meals. Mark had his leftovers for lunch the next day, and mine went in the freezer for a later date.

Pantry Prawns; courtesy of Worldfoods

1 clove of garlic, pressed
Large peice of ginger grated
(to my shame) teaspoonful of lazy chilli
250g prawns (Mark had 2 chicken thighs finely sliced, and cooked until brown)
Red pepper chopped
Courgette chopped
Onion finely chopped
Spinach
Sweetcorn
(I forgot I had edamame beans and green beans in the freezer, but had I remembered I would have added those too)
Half a jar of Worldfoods Chinese ginger, garlic & chilli sauce

In a large pan or wok, heat up some flavourless oil and add your garlic, chilli, ginger and onion. Sweat the onion off, stirring constantly
Add prawns, and cook until they turn pink,
Add vegetables and cook until they just start to soften
Add sauce and reduce down

It took, less than 10 minutes to cook this, bearing in mind I also did a chicken one that was missing the extra spices, and rice as well. Perfect for a quick, easy supper when you've been at work all day and done battle with Mr Sainsburys to boot. You'll see from the pic, that I had got out soy sauce to use as a condiment as I hadn't added salt at any point, but really didn't feel that the dish needed it - I'm terrible for underseasoning things though so do a taste test yourself, and add soy or salt to taste.

The only thing I think I would do different again, would be to add some coriander at the end to freshen it up.

So, there you have it, my first challenge as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team... watch this space for more installments, including my favourite - Pad Thai!

Nasi Goreng: add your own showtune here...

It's that time of year again when our thoughts turn to new shoes, a new pencil case, and of course - what to put in our packed lunch box. For me when I was at school it was always sandwiches - peanut butter and banana were my favourite - and one of my best friends Liz, taught me well that you add the banana at lunchtime so it's not brown! These days I really struggle with sandwiches - Mark has them every day, and when I try I just find them dull. As an alternative I tend to go for salads in the summer (this week, pea shoots, feta, prawn, tomato and sprouted seeds - also known as everything that was reduced in Sainsburys).

In the colder months, I have a lot of homemade soups, sometimes with homemade bread (when I'm watching what I eat, without), also leftovers. Now these aren't practical for a child's lunchbox unless you have a thermos - Lakeland do some pricy, but wide necked ones that I think would be amazing for my lunches, actually I look at them and think about ordering every time. There has to be a cheaper alternative for kids out there and I'll keep my eyes peeled.

With my lunch I have fruit - a lot of fruit, this week it's black grapes, plums, a banana and an apple and normally a Nakd bar. This allows me to graze throughout the day at work, which works for me if I don't have time for a proper lunch break. Mark has crisps, a sausage roll, peice of cheese, cereal bar, a banana and some dried fruit. We're quite different, but it's what suits us best.

 This week, I'm having a Pantry take on Nasi goreng - an Indonesian rice salad. Unusually for me,  I'm straying into the realms of cooking with tofu for the first time. Now, I had most of the base ingredients in my fridge and pantry, but had to buy the tofu, and edamame beans. However the amount of lunches this has made is extraordinary. There's definitely enough for the rest of the week, and I'll portion out the rest in the freezer for next week too. You could serve this hot - in a thermos or if your office has a microwave, or eat it cold as a rice salad.

 Penelope's Pantry does Nasi Goreng

Light olive oil
2 cups of brown basmati rice - cooked and cooled
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp lazy chilli
2 thumb size peices of ginger grated
4 spring onions finely chopped (all the way up - use the green parts too)
1 cup of chopped red pepper
1 cup of edamame beans (I used frozen)
1 cup of sweetcorn (again I used frozen)
200g tofu (I used smoked) finely chopped
2 eggs beaten
3 tablespoons of soy sauce

Cook the rice in double the volume of boiling water (I use Delia's infallible absorbtion method) and leave to cool down.
Heat up some olive oil in a big wok or large pan, and when it's hot, add the spring onions, garlic, chilli and ginger. Cook through until this mix becomes aromatic - stirring all the while
Add the rice, and stir through so that the base ingredients aren't stuck on the bottom of the pan, but are mixed through (this way your garlic won't burn and go bitter)
Add the pepper, edamame beans, sweetcorn and tofu and cook through, stirring for about 5 minutes
Make a well in the middle of your pan and add your beaten eggs. Stir them so that they scramble and then mix through the rest of the rice
Cook through for another couple of minutes and then add the soy sauce.

Now I've tasted this and feel it's missing something - thinking back to my Lifechanging soup (TM) I think it's the sourness that it needs an edge - a friend has recommended adding a tablespoon of the pickling vinegar from a jar of pickled veg. I don't have any in, so will go without but would add that as a change for next time.

I think it's worth mentioning that traditionally Nasi Goreng would have chicken and prawns added, but costs at the moment mean I'm reducing my meat intake again. The tofu worked out far cheaper for the quantity that this made. Whilst the eggs make this unsuitable for vegans, those could easily be left out, and if you're a hardened carnivore or pescatarian again, amend it to suit you.
So that's my packed lunches sorted for the forseeable. A tasty, veggie alternative to sandwiches.