We’re excited to welcome David Maren of Tendergrass Farms back to RobbWolf.com with this guest post. He’s written up this easy recipe for pastured turkey curry, and has a bonus giveaway to help some of you get started.
First, the coupon code: FARMERS-ROCK-123
This coupon code gives you 2 massive 4-pound pastured turkey soup packs with any order over $199 at Tendergrass Farms, which will also qualify you for Free Shipping (limit 100 redemptions, expires 9/30/13). Each pack consists of all the parts from two huge pastured turkey wings plus one massive pastured turkey neck which adds up to about 4 pounds. It’s chock-full of primal goodies: bones, skin, marrow, tendons, cartilage, sinew, & spinal cord. But as you can see in the photos below, it’s got plenty of meat on it as well.
Paleo Curry: Recipe & Giveaway
I did a fair amount of traveling in third world countries before I started grass-based farming here in Floyd, VA and no matter where I went I almost always enjoyed the food. The diversity among the ways that people prepare food around the world really interested me. I did, however, notice a striking degree of unity from country to country with regard to certain preparation techniques. One unifying feature that was hard to miss in the poorer countries that I visited was that meat dishes were always prepared with the bones in. Whether it was beef tamales steamed with jalapenos and plums in Chiapas, Mexico, chicken and chayote soup in the Cuchumatán Mountains of Guatemala, or goat stew in the Peruvian desert, I was constantly spitting out pieces of bone as I ate.
Granted, these dirt-floor chefs had no PhD’s in nutrition but common sense told them that if you’re low on money then there’s no sense in throwing away vitally nutritious bones, cartilage, and sinews that are naturally found in bone-in cuts of meat. This recipe is inspired by those many nutritious bone-picking meals that I’ve had around the world.
This is the contents of one Tendergrass Farms Beyond Organic Turkey Soup Pack.
The nice thing about cooking with boney cuts is that they’re usually quite a bit cheaper than boneless cuts. If you don’t choose to take advantage of our free turkey coupon code (above) you can also make this with other boney cuts like pastured chicken wings and necks, grass fed beef soup bones, or whole squirrels. You may even have a family farmer right down the road who’s got something perfect for this dish. If you need help finding a good farm locally, try the online directory of grass based farmers over at EatWild.com.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 5 to 7 hours in crock pot on ‘high’
Ingredients:
– 4 pounds turkey wings and necks
– 2 cans of coconut milk (approx. 14 oz. cans)
– 1 medium onion, chopped
– 2 tablespoons olive oil (or coconut oil or lard)
– 5 medium cloves of garlic, chopped
– 3 to 4 tablespoons of your favorite curry powder
– 1 tablespoon powdered ginger
– salt to taste
Serves four very big hungry cavemen very well.
The first step is to turn your crock pot on ‘high’ and throw in your turkey, onions, and garlic. While your crock pot is starting to heat up, mix your coconut milk, curry powder, ginger, and oil together in a medium-sized bowl. You may find that a wire whisk is the best tool to remove the clumps in the coconut milk. As soon as you’ve mixed it all together and it has a reasonably creamy consistency you can go ahead and pour the concoction over the contents of the crock pot.
After at least 5 to 7 hours the contents of the crock pot should look like this, which means it’s done. At first the coconut curry sauce will not cover the turkey very well at all but as the mixture cooks down it will get more and more stew-like. As with most crock pot recipes, cook time is somewhat subjective. After all, the more goodness you can cook out of those bones the better. If you’re gone at work for 8 or 9 hours a day and you’re concerned about leaving it to cook all day long, you needn’t be. In that case I just might stick the crock pot on ‘low’ instead of ‘high.’
And voila! Scrumptious pastured turkey goodness. Curry, of course, is often served over either rice or noodles which are far from paleo. My personal opinion is that if you’re not going to eat something, just don’t eat it. I’ll take my curry served over a real organic arugula salad any day rather than having it served over fake rice or fake noodles (i.e., crumbled cauliflower, spaghetti squash). That way the curry sauce acts as a delightful salad dressing and you’re not constantly being reminded of what you’re not eating (rice/noodles). The salad’s light crunch balances the heavier creaminess of the curried turkey.
David Maren is a husband, father, farmer, and co-founder of Tendergrass Farms. Tendergrass Farms is a cooperative-style online grass fed meats shop that exists as a bridge between the often geographically isolated family farmer and committed grass fed meats enthusiasts like yourself. The Tendergrass Farms vision is to sustain family farms through making it easy for you to purchase their meats by taking advantage of appropriate technology and ultra-efficient transportation models that enable their meats to be shipped to fans all around the USA.
If you’re not already a huge fan of Tendergrass Farms, you’re missing out: Go bookmark their site, like their Facebook page, and follow them on Twitter, and check out their blog!
Squatchy
Christopher Williams (a.k.a. Squatchy) is a paleo aficionado, educator, personal trainer, wellness coach, and hobbyist chef. He also works as part of the Robb Wolf team.
