BEN’S ZONE: Easy Turkey Leftover Ragu Recipe

Welcome to a weekly feature on my blog – Ben’s Zone. Written by husband… Ben. A foodie, coffee obsessed, ex-smoking, ex-drinking and Ridgeback loving Dad. Who is also seriously into his fitness.  You can find him on the blog (mostly) on Sundays. Enjoy!

Easy Turkey Leftover Ragu Recipe

I do love turkey at Christmas but by the day after Boxing Day I’m getting sick of cold roast meat with chips and so I start to look to do something a bit more interesting with the remains of the Christmas roast.  At times like these I turn to a easy turkey leftover ragu recipe to have with pasta.  It feels wholesome after all the excess of Christmas. The base recipe here is very easy, you can add stuff or remove stuff as the mood takes you, or, perhaps as you find in the store cupboard.  This is an obvious post Christmas treat but it works just as well year round.  If you shop about you can often find either turkey crowns or breast joints for a great price as shops offload Christmas over stock, these are brilliant for Sunday roasts with the ragu as a week day supper.

Ingredients:

20g butter
Leftover turkey chopped finely
1 larger onion finely diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
2 rashers smoked streaky bacon, diced
1 celery stick, finely chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes / carton of passata
Tomato puree
4 sun-dried tomatoes
1 tub mascarpone cheese
Soy sauce
Balsamic vinegar
Sugar

Method

1. Get the butter in your pan on a gentle heat and allow it to brown.  Honestly I’m not sure if the taste makes it through into the final dish, being quite acidic as it is but I love the nutty goodness of browned butter and it takes minimal time to do this.
2. Add in the garlic, onion and bacon, allow to fry slowly and cook down until it’s almost jelly like in the way it looks
3. Once the veg has really cooked down crank the heat on and get some colour onto the veg, add in the celery.
4. Either blitz the canned tomatoes to a liquid and add or if using passata add in direct.
5. Chop sundried tomatoes finely and add in, along with a squirt of tomato puree.
6. Add in your finely chopped turkey, at this juncture I want a nice thick meaty ragu rather than noticeable chunks of meat, you could add leftover gammon too if you liked.
7. Put in a splash of balsamic and a splash of soy sauce and allow to cook down.
8. Once the vinegar has cooked off, add a small pinch of sugar and then check seasoning.
9. Leave to simmer for about 45 minutes on a very low heat.
10. Turn off heat, mix in the mascarpone and check seasoning again.

Serve with pasta, fresh if you have it, don’t worry if not.