Readers of the good stuff, it looks like we made it.
Despite all the haters when this crazy ride kicked off saying “he’ll never get over 190 subscribers,” “he doesn’t even know his tagliatelle from his tagliolini” and “I don’t know what you’re talking about, what is Sam’s Good Stuff?”, yes - despite it all - it’s Christmas and we’re still rocking.
Or are we rocking? Hmm? Are you rocking?
Or like everyone else apparently in this point of time, do you instead have covid?
Jeez c’mon alright? Be original! Stop being a sheep! Get a more unique, good old fashioned illness like the flu, or dysentery, or syphilis or something gringo.
That’s what I say to myself when I wake up each day and see my cliche coronavirus riddled self in the mirror.
But to hell with it! We’re going to have a festive time whatever and so to make up for these untimely pandemics, I am going to take you deep into the Christmas zone with a recipe that is truly mine, and also one of the very few recipes in the world that merits an exclamation mark in it’s title:
Turkey Curry!
Yes it’s a recipe title with terminal punctuation!
Turkey Curry!
Can’t you feel it? MM! Turkey! MM! Curry! MM Turkey Curry!
It’s just like saying:
Merry Christmas!
Except instead, it’s saying:
Turkey Curry!
I first made turkey curry! in the aftermath of last year’s cancelled Christmas. I don’t know what came over me as I approached the pan, but I found myself in a state that I would later learn psychologists refer to as “in flow.” I was swirling seeds in smoking ghee, dropping spices subconsciously and moving between cupboard, fridge and ever developing cauldron with a singularity and purpose that I have never known before and will likely never know again.
It was a moment of perfect mental unity that - if we’re lucky - we experience once in a lifetime. Einstein had it when he envisioned his theory of relativity in 1905, David Beckham had it when he scored the world cup qualifying free kick in 2001, and I had it when I made a curry with leftover Christmas turkey in 2020. Maybe your moment is waiting in 2021?
So this is my Christmas gift to you all; to share the fruits of my moment. The leftovers are the best bit about the Christmas meal and any wiseman awaits boxing day knowing it to deliver the greatest sandwich of the year. Well now, we can look forward to the day after boxing day too, where we open the fridge, grab the last bits of what’s remaining and step forth to create…
Turkey Curry!
In the interest of fighting the corrupting forces of fake news, I will admit that the photos shared are actually of chicken curry, an exceedingly fine dish in itself even if not in merit of an exclamation mark.
I could not do a photo Turkey Curry! as by its very nature it requires the leftovers of the festive beast. That is not to say one should not make chicken curry using this recipe with the leftovers of a Sunday roast (one should! one should! The author implores), it is just to say that it will not be the calendar moment that Turkey Curry represents, the fusion of history where Jesus, Britain’s colonies in India and the pandemic causing this newsletter to be born all come together; the crown of thorns on Christmas’s head.
Ingredients
250g leftover turkey
1/3 tin tomato, blitzed
1 tsp tomato paste
1 chopped onion
3 garlic cloves (pounded)
1 heaped tablespoon yoghurt
1 heaped tablespoon ghee
3 tbsp Olive oil
Leftover juices from roasting the turkey (if any remain)
whole spices
2cm piece cinnamon
2 cloves
1 kashmiri chilli
1 tsp cumin seeds
powdered spices
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp chilli powder
Add the ghee and olive oil to a pan on high heat and once hot, add the whole spices, which should sizzle immediately. Once the cumin seeds start to colour slightly and you can get a good heady whiff of them (about 10-20 seconds, though be careful to not let them burn or you should start again), add the chopped onion and turmeric. Constantly stir and fry for about 10 minutes until they have taken on a nice brown tinge, at which point add the garlic and cook another minute or so.
Add the tinned tomatoes and paste and turn the heat down. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes or so until the sauce has darkened in colour and the fat has separated from the tomato.
Stir in the yoghurt, then add about 100ml water and also some cooking juices from the Turkey if you have any leftover (a few tablespoons will do). Add the chopped up turkey and some chopped up roast potatoes if any of those are somehow left by now too.
Put the lid on and allow to simmer on low heat for less than five minutes; just enough time for the ingredients to get to know each other a little.
Top with coriander, and serve with rice, some hot pickle and a simple salad made of cucumber, raw shallot and lemon juice.
The use of an eggy mark is always worth weighing carefully in order to, almost always, reachi the decision to set it aside...but I respect your process and so its use here carries much weight. That must have been some 'flow'.