Yes, my lovelies, Annalena is back. With a bit of an essay and some ramblings here.
I've spent the last few days tracking down a poem from my college days. Those who have studied Japanese lit will know about the "Manyoshu," or the "one thousand leaved anthology." This is an early collection of poetry. When I say early, I'm talking centuries in the single digits - say 5th, 6th, 7th and so forth.
Well, I had read much of it in college, and one poem stuck with me, and came to mind this week for one image. A Japanese courtier is writing of the secret marriage to a woman and how their love was kept secret "like a rock-pent pool." Well, dare it be said that Annalena is feeling likewise about her love, and in days to come, perhaps will remove the rocks. Do stay tuned. I will only write if there are good results. And try to follow Annalena's advice, taken from a popular song : "If you know it, show it." Well, I need to follow my own advice. Bear with me. It ain't easy being me.
So, let us turn now to cooking. The title of the above was inspired by the recipe I shall present. I think you will probably know what I mean when I say "what goes into it that makes it French? Or Italian? Or S panish?" Are there particular ingredients or styles of cooking, or what? If it has tomato, does that make it Italian? If it has pimenton, Spanish? There was a time where, if something contained spinach, it was de facto called "florentine." If it had grapes in it, it was call "veronique." And so on, and so forth.
A few weeks ago, I was leafing through the Times food section and read a recipe called "Turkey meatloaf, turkish style." Well, I am intrigued by turkish cooking, although I am NOT intrigued by ground turkey. In fact, as MFK Fisher said about rutubaga, I would have said, in the past "down with it, I say." Well, read on.
I wanted to know what made the recipe turkish style. Was it pomegranate juice? or a combination of spices? What, exactly is "turkish style," especially since, as far as I know, there ain't no turkey in Turkey.
According to the article, it is "the flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, with garlic, walnuts and mint in the mix"
HUH????? First of all, "the Eastern Mediterranean" covers a whole lot more than Turkey. Garlic, walnut and mint can "signify," as my friend Jonathan would say, just about any culture that borders the Mediterranean. Why is this not Israeli style? Or Moroccan? Or Maltese? Perhaps our writer was just having some fun with the play on turkey/Turkey, and we have to give our writers some latitude on things like that. I guess.
Well, like I say, I am not a fan of ground turkey. Several of my friends, however, truly like it. The last time we made meatloaf here, one of the puppies asked if we could substitute ground turkey for what we were working with, which was a combination of pork/veal/beef. I GUESS you could, I said, but I was not very convinced. But, looking for something new to make in the kitchen, I gave this a try, with one change.
I didn't use mint. Mint is a difficult flavor to pull off in anything other than juleps. It is VERY strong, and if, for example , you have a partner who does not care for it, you need to find something else. And given the recipe, this was easy. It was VERY easy.
If you look up this recipe on the NY Times web page, it will be much more complicated than the one I present here. (See how much Annalena loves you all? She works and slaves to make things easier. And keeps her love in a rock pent pool. So make the thing for heaven's sake.).
To start, let's gather ingredients, cause there's more than a few of them. You need 2 pounds of ground turkey. You will also need a green bell pepper, that you will seed and chop coarsely. Also, a large onion, also chopped coarsely. You can put those together.
Peel four cloves of garlic, and mix them with 3/4 cup of parsley and basil, mixed together. You can vary the amounts, but don't decrease it, and don't use all of one or the other. Add 3/4 cup of walnuts to that mix. IF you are allergic to walnuts, but can eat some other type of nut, then I suggest that you substitute in. Pistachios sound good. So do cashews, and so do pine nuts. Finally, you will need some olive oil, and about 3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs , "Panko" if you can find it.
Digression here. Since we started with reference to Japanese literature. "panko" is Japanese bread crumbs. And it's a wonderful word. Japanese has no word for bread, so they stole the word for bread from Portuguese, when the Portuguese were invading - OOPS - I mean EXPLORING - Japan. That word is "pan." In Japanese "ko" at the end of a word makes it a diminutive. Sort of like "ette" in French, or "ino" in Italian, and probably something in Turkish that I don't know. But if you can't find it, use regular crumbs.
Ok, let's get to work. Take the walnuts ,and the herbs, and put them in a food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Put that aside. Don't clean the bowl of the processor. Put the garlic in, and then the onions and green pepper and do the same thing.
Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add that onion/garlic/pepper mixture and cook it until it begins to soften. You'll know it: you'll see water going off, and a "mass" beginning to form. When that happens, take it off the heat, dump the stuff into a bowl, and add the walnut mixture.
Meanwhile, soak the panko or the breadcrumbs in half a cup of water. They'll soften up, and add them to the mix. Finally add the turkey. Get in there with your hands and mix it up. You should add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and taste, and then add more if you need it (Note that, if you have the skeeves about raw meat, use the hot frying pan to cook a little of it and taste it). Just add salt to your taste.
Preheat the oven to 375, and divide the mixture into two even portions. Form it into long loaves, along side of each other, on a baking sheet, lined with parchment. Bake this for an hour. You will see all kinds of juices and liquids going out of it, and that's fine. In fact, if you feel like indulging yourself, eat some of those carmelized bits when the loaf comes out of the oven. You deserve it.
Now, you have a nice, hot, relatively benign dinner waiting for you, but let's face it: the major reason for meatloaf's existence is sandwiches. Make some. Make a lot of them. You're supposed to eat this with yogurt.
Yeah, right. Please pass the ketchup. And the pickles. And some good solid bread. Whole wheat or rye, rather than white. And enjoy yourself one of the best darn sandwiches you've ever had.
And I will tell you all about what happens when the rock-pent pool is released. But only if it's good. And it will be.
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