Festive Food: Coronation Turkey

Turkey and Christmas - every year families munch their way through a massive quantity of turkey on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and there always seems to be more of it than we know what to do with. Finding different ways to use up this most festive of meats can be a challenge, but now we bring you a sandwich filling using up some of the leftover turkey. The nicest thing about this is that you can either use it now or freeze the cooked turkey, then defrost and make it into Coronation Turkey at a later date, e.g. for sandwiches for work or the kids, etc...

Our recipe is loosely based on the old-favourite Coronation Chicken recipe devised in 1953 for the Queen's coronation feast, but is simpler to make and exceptionally tasty! Are you ready to give it a go? Read on...

CORONATION TURKEY

400g-450g of cooked turkey meat, cut into small-ish pieces
4 spring onions, finely sliced
150g dried cranberries (we get ours from ALDI)
Cup of cranberry juice (own brand carton juice is fine)
2 tablespoons mango chutney (we get ours from ALDI but it's widely available in most supermarkets)
4 tablespoons mayonnaise (we use Hellman's as it's mustard free but any mayo will work)
1 tablespoon of Tikka curry powder (we use Tesco's as it's the nicest we've found)

Soak the cranberries in the juice in a covered bowl overnight. Drain off the remaining juice the following day - the juice isn't needed for this recipe.

In a large bowl mix together the mayo, the chutney and the curry powder, add the turkey, the spring onions and the drained cranberries. Mix well until everything is coated with the mayo mix. Add a bit more mayo if your meat isn't completely coated. Leave to stand in a covered bowl in the fridge for a couple of hours before using to allow the curry flavour to develop.

Use for sandwich filling or with a salad. Serves 4-6 depending on portion size.

Kitchen Magic: Turning white sugar into brown!

A year or so ago we found a stack of strange jars in our local Tesco, in the bargain aisle. Closer inspection revealed they were Üzüm Pekmezi (a molasses-like syrup obtained after condensing juices of fruit must) and were being sold off at 25p  per jar, so we decided to push the boat out and bought some.  Getting them home safely, we pondered what we could use them for... then inspiration struck... could we use them instead of sugar in recipes? Yes we could. We also mixed them with ordinary cheap white sugar and something quite magical happened: we ended up with lovely soft brown sugar!

Quantities are flexible, you can make as much as you want or need. Simply put white sugar into a bowl and add small amounts of Üzüm Pekmezi and mix (we found a fork works best for mixing it in) until you get the consistency of brown sugar you want. Less gives you a lighter golden sugar, more gives you a darker Demerara, more still produces a Muscovado type sugar. The Üzüm Pekmezi goes a long way too!

Here's how it went, in pictures...

You can use Üzüm Pekmezi in other ways too, as Kerry Arslan points out in her Turkish Life Cafe blog post about its nutritional benefits: the caramel flavour milkshake sounds rather nice! 

If you want to try this yourself but don't know where to source it, a Google search for pekmez where to buy will bring up pages of suggested retailers.  Enjoy!