After a day of taking pictures of dishes made with ground turkey _ the same pictures you see on these pages _ photographer Hillary Levin had an insight. In a moment of clarity and understanding usually attainable only by solitary meditation on a remote mountaintop, she said, "Ground turkey is the tofu of meat."
Lightning split the heavens. A dense bank of clouds parted, allowing a blinding ray of sunlight to shine brightly through. Somewhere, a distant church bell chimed.
Ground turkey is the tofu of meat.
It has no particular flavor of its own, and no one would want to eat it by itself. But it absorbs the flavors of the food around it, and amplifies them and adds texture. It acts as a catalyst; you add it to other ingredients and it makes them taste better.
It is also inexpensive. To my eye, that makes it an ideal base for lunch or dinner.
For this week, I made four entrees with ground turkey. Why? Because I could.
One thing I did not make was turkey burgers. Turkey burgers are fine in their limited way, but in the end they are just ... turkey burgers. They are only worth eating if you put something interesting on them or in them (because ground turkey is the tofu of meat).
When I was doing research for this story, however, most of the recipes I found were for turkey burgers. They were always dolled up in some way _ jerk turkey burgers, Asian turkey burgers, Southwest turkey burgers _ but you couldn't hide the fact that they were still just turkey burgers.
So I made four decidedly unburgerish dishes using ground turkey. And they were so much better than their pattied and grilled cousins.
I started with a dish I make frequently as part of my regular lunchtime rotation. I never gave it a name before, but it looks kind of sloppy so I am calling it Dan's Turkey Mess.
Essentially, it is chili, but without the liquid. It's the meat _ ground turkey instead of ground beef _ seasoned with a few essential seasonings and mixed with canned diced tomatoes and beans.
Yes, it is a bit of a mess. But it is hearty and quite satisfying. I like to make it spicy and serve it on rice.
For my next dish, I made a recipe that I was frankly embarrassed to try: Three-Cheese Turkey Manicotti. It takes shortcuts I am loath to take. It uses ingredients I prefer not to use (Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder). It uses a bizarre amount of sweet onion. It puts sugar in tomato sauce.
But I had already bought the ingredients apparently without sufficiently examining the recipe. So I begrudgingly made it, after cutting the sweet onion in half, eliminating the sugar, making my own tomato sauce instead of getting it from a jar, using chopped onion instead of onion powder and going to the store to buy Italian seasoning.
And here is the weird part: It tasted delicious. Seriously, it was amazing. Maybe it was all the cheese (the manicotti are stuffed with cheese; the ground turkey and sauce go on top). Maybe it was the balance of flavors. Maybe it was my homemade tomato sauce. But this is definitely a dish to feed your family or dazzle your friends at potluck dinners.
The same can be said of my next dish, Tamale Pie. This is a dish that takes all the best parts of a tamale, ditches the corn husks, and makes it into a casserole. Martha Stewart, whose recipe I used, calls it "the official casserole of Texas."
That may or may not be _ I lived in Texas and don't remember eating it, but then again I don't remember not eating it, either. If Texas doesn't want to claim it, maybe some other state will, because it is outstanding.
Think of it as a casserole sandwich. The top and bottom layers are made from cornmeal, with the top embellished with browned Monterey Jack cheese. In between is a heavenly melange of Southwestern flavors _ ground turkey, of course, plus tomatoes, onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, cayenne and more.
If you have ribs, it will stick to them.
And last, but far, far from least, I looked toward India and made Turkey-Spinach Korma. It is a curry with turkey and spinach, flavored with garlic, ginger, cilantro and onion, and enhanced and enriched with yogurt.
It is a fresh, bright and unexpected take on ground turkey, and about as far from a turkey burger as you can get.
