Yotam Ottolenghi’s marinated turkey breast with cumin, coriander, and white wine

Turkey isn’t just for Christmas dinner, and if you fancy something a little different to the traditional roast, try this fresher tasting alternative. It only uses the breast, so it's perfect if you're only 2-3 people.  This is from Yotam Ottolenghi's the cookbook. 

4 tbsp mint leaves (it really annoys me when recipes require teaspoons of a herb. One basil leaf is the size of – or bigger than – a teaspoon. Same for a mint leaf. I took a couple of springs, stripped and chopped them. 

4 tbsp parsley leaves (see above)

4 tbsp coriander leaves (and again)

1 garlic clove, peeled (one garlic clove? ONE??? Put in at least 2-3)

60 ml [about 3 oz] lemon juice (life is too short to measure out 60ml of lemon juice. Get your lemon and juice it.)

125 ml [about 4 oz] white wine (ditto; glug, glug and another glug for good measure)

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

about 1kg turkey breast

Either put all the ingredients except the turkey breast in a food processor or blender and blitz for 1-2 minutes to get a smooth marinade or mash it up using a pestle and mortar. This latter option reduces the amount of washing up! If you are going to use the pestle and mortar too, add the wine at the end, only. Doing it this way results in a more chunky marinade.

Ottolenghi's marinade for roast turkey

Put the turkey in a non-metallic container and pour the marinade over it. Massage the marinade into the meat, cover the container and leave in the fridge for 24 hours or however long you have (only up to 24 hours – please do not cook or eat anything, especially meat, that’s been basking in your fridge for a long time!).

As a complete aside, I heard some about competition thing on the radio once, where people had to ring in and complete the sentence “you know your marriage is in trouble when…”. One of the entrants was “you watch your husband prepare the Christmas turkey, and you're jealous as the turkey is getting more action than you.” Ho ho ho.

The turkey breast, marinading 

Anyway, when you’ve marinated your turkey, preheat your oven to 220°C. It starts getting a bit diva-ish at this stage, as you've the change the temperature every 15 minutes for the next half an hour, so put a reminder on your phone to keep yourself reminded.

Ottolenghi says to remove the turkey from the marinade (keep the marinade for later) and put it on a roasting tray. I kept the turkey in the marinade and cooked it the way he suggests: put it in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, then reduce them temperature to 200°C. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature again to 180°C. Cook it at this temperature until the turkey is done — another 30-45 minutes. To check, the turkey is cooked, stick a small knife all the way into the centre; it should come out hot. If the meat goes dark before it is ready, cover it will foil.

The roasted, marinated turkey breast

If you decide to remove the turkey from the marinade, put the leftover marinade in a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes, until reduced by about half. Taste and season with some more salt and pepper.

Remove the turkey from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice it thinly and serve with the warm sauce.

I've also tried the sumac chicken from this book. 

For those hot, summer nights

I have a post written from about 10 days ago, about my plans for a mysterious 3 kilos that seem to have crept onto the bathroom scales over the past few months. The post is currently unpublished as thankfully summer finally arrived, my appetite has vamoosed and with it, about 1.5 of the mysterious 3 kilos.

Today, it is (checks phone) 34 degrees. 34 degrees! Crikey! That’s hot. The in-laws are due any moment for a bbq, and I spent the critical heat hours (ie: midday to 2pm) in the relative coolness of the kitchen rustling up some focaccia, roasting some courgette, aubergine, red onion and tomatoes for a roast veg and bulgur salad and making a Gordon Ramsay lemon tart. I have photos, but first looks and smells are positive!

Roasted vegetable and bulgur salad

For starters, I have a mozzarella, fig, melon and cured meat platter. Open a packet of prosciutto or mixed cured meat and arrange on your dish and add slices of melon, torn balls of mozz and some figs.

Mixed meat, melon, mozzerella and fig platter

My goose is cooked!

We had some friends over for dinner this week, and decided to try my hand at cooking goose. I got the bird from those lovely guys at Jack O’Sheas, and the very nice gentleman who served me cleaned the bird out for me (thank G, otherwise we would have been sitting down to take out pizza… no way on this earth I was putting my hands inside that thing!).

I used a recipe from The Irish Times, my first attempt at a Domini Kemp recipe, and it was delicious. I would definitely do it again. I’ve been reading her recipes for a good while and I’ve wanted to try them. I’ll be making more from her in the future.

The goose recipe is here.

Some things I should say: the nice gentleman in the butchers also removed the layer of fat between the skin and the meat. Nonetheless, the amount of fat that came off the bird during the cooking was impressive. I reckon I got about a litre of fat in all. Also, it redecorated the inside of the oven – again, thank G for self-cleaning ovens.

I’d love to be able to show you photos of the goose, but by this stage of the evening we had already consumed a couple of glasses of vino and Champagne (it was New Years eve),  and serving up was already a challenge. Sorry folks, but please use your imagination – it looked like a photo you see in a glossy cooking magazine – perfectly golden and all.