Turning over a new leaf…with Thai Turkey Curry

My generosity knows limits. I am not famous for my good cheer, as anyone who knows me will, no doubt, tell you unasked. Christmas and the general atmosphere of bonhomie associated with it sickens me to the marrow and usually, when I am in good health, I run far far away from it with great strength and vigour. As far as I am concerned all this ha-ha hee-hee’s around a cooked bird on a dinner table is an awful nuisance and a terrible waste of time and money. All utterly pointless and torturously stomach-turning.

If only Dickens had met me in his time…..

What with the years piling up on me, and my growing concern for my complete lack of good Christmas Charity this year I decided to plunge into the Yuletide spirit and invite a few friends over. No! I did not pay them to be my friends, what an utterly rude proposition. I simply asked my kid brother to bring his buddies (a few of whom, I confess, I had never met before) back home for dinner.

It wasn’t a pretty occasion, I can tell you that. I had this marvelous dress all ironed and set, quiet ready to be worn, spread across my bed. The plan was simple, I would quickly do my bit in the kitchen and then swish across to the bedroom and finally sashay out in all my glory. But it was the cooking that got into the way. Who knew it involved so much….doing! I mean, what’s the bleeding point in handling real fruits and vegetables..and stuff closely related to those species, when we can get all that our body needs out of well-packed, endlessly refrigerated, slightly plastic (but so healthy that the header on the can screams it out) syrup soaked canned foods in supermarkets? Beats me!

And like handling such stuff isn’t punishment enough. Look what they do to you on a fine Christmas night; leave you looking like the old baker’s discontented wife with occasional traces of flour, sugar and every other ingredient you have dared to use in the kitchen snugly clinging to all exposed parts of your face. All while that pretty pink dress waits on the bed!

Of course some of you might argue that a couple of hormone crazed pre-teenagers still waiting for their first grain of facial hair to appear did not exactly need to see me in a pink halter clattering up and down the dining room in my unbelievably high heels (which would undoubtedly have caused at least a few well-placed falls through the night), but I would beg to differ. Tonight I was going to be the perfect hostess, and perfect hostess’, I had read somewhere, did stuff like that.

Anyway, the dinner wasn’t half bad. I made a Low Fat Thai Turkey Curry, which sounded like a tough cookie but turned out to be a whimpering poodle instead (see below for recipe).

One of the boys left me a giant red baboon stuffed toy as a gift.

I was so touched that I had to notice the boy’s strange similarity with the monkey. Odd, I told myself.

Low Fat Thai Turkey Curry (sounds tough, but isn’t)

Enough for 4 hungry large mouthed kids.

Ingredients

1. 2 teaspoon oil
2. 2 cups turkey, skinless, chopped
3. 1 carrot, chopped this way and that
4. 1 broccoli, snapped into florets
5. 1 thick celery stalk
6. 1 thick garlic clove, minced
7. 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
8. 1 onion (preferably yellow) chopped this way and that
9. 1 tablespoon brown sugar
10. 1 cup coconut milk
11. 1 cup chicken broth
12. 2 teaspoon red curry paste
13. 1 tablespoon fish sauce

How to do

Take a large pan. Heat oil. Add all the chopped veggies. Add ginger and garlic. Sauté (cool word for swishing the food around from one side to another in a pan) for about 4 minutes. Check if softened, obviously cook if not soft (that is unless you want to spend your time doing nothing but chewing at the table). Add sugar, chicken broth and coconut milk and also red curry paste and fish sauce, not simultaneously and in normal pace (that is to say that no great harm will be caused if you don’t manage to chuck in all the ingredients in all at once as the instruction seems to suggest). Once the concoction boils reduce flame and simmer. Cook for 10 more minutes. Now add the turkey. Fiddle around until the turkey is hot enough.

Serve with rice.

Next Week: Instructions for cooking rice