Last week I cooked this Easy Turkey Stir Fry (although the Menu Plan was to do a Beef version) and it caused quite a stir in my house. Not that a stir fry in itself was anything different, it was the main ingredient – Turkey – that was of particular interest.
You see, we have recently had a group of ‘brush turkeys’ who decided that our backyard was a great place to build their breeding mound. Now this is no ordinary mound. It consists of leaves, twigs and all other matter of material that is raked into a mound about 1 metre high and 2-3 metres wide for the purpose of housing their eggs. It’s huge and requires a lot of work.
Brush Turkey
The male turkey has been at it consistently for weeks and in the process stripped our yard of any loose leaves or plant material. In fact, they’ve stripped everything that housed any remotely useful material completely bare and I’ve even spotted some bits of cardboard and paper in the pile.
Needless to say, it has been a constant source of entertainment; particularly when there is a bit of ‘family feuding’ and the turkeys start to ‘argue’. It can become quite noisy when this happens and you can sense the ‘turkey tension’ in the air. It’s best to stay away or go out for a few hours while this is going on.
Anyway, what does this have to do with Easy Turkey Stir Fry for dinner? Well, I got the usual ‘What’s for dinner’ question from my youngest son Stewart. When I told him the answer (Easy Turkey Stir Fry), he went in to an absolute laughing fit and kept repeating “turkey for dinner, that’s funny Mum”.
It then dawned on me, that in his short but eventful life, he hadn’t really crossed paths with a turkey of the eating variety. So to his young mind, the only turkey in existence is the one he has come to know in the backyard. Once I realised this, I too was in hysterics and had to explain that it wasn’t our ‘pet’ turkeys we would be eating but other turkeys…that lived on farms…a bit like chickens. I don’t know if the message got through but we definitely have it down on the to-do-list to show him what other turkeys look like.
Amidst all the frivolity, the stir fry was great and using turkey this way is something I haven’t done before. Originally I was looking for beef to use when I came across it in the meat section on special and felt inspired to try something different. Also, the satay sauce I used was ‘Wild Wattleseed Satay’ from Basically Wild Edible Art which was great.
Easy Turkey Stir Fry
Easy Turkey Stir Fry
Ingredients
500g turkey breast, cut into strips
½ cup satay sauce or marinade
1 red onion, cut into wedges
1 medium red capsicum, sliced
1 bunch bok choy, slice leaves and stems
1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
2 tablespoons peanut oil
Method
If time permits, marinate the turkey in ¼ cup satay sauce for 1 hour or more before cooking.
Heat ½ tablespoon of oil in wok and stir fry 1/3 of turkey. Set cooked turkey aside. Repeat with the remaining turkey.
Heat remaining oil and stir fry onion for 1 minute. Add other ‘hard’ vegetables – capsicum, bok choy stems and broccoli plus ¼ cup satay sauce. Stir fry for 1 minute.
Return turkey to the wok along with ‘soft’ vegetables (bok choy leaves). Stir fry until turkey has heated through and bok choy is wilted.
Serve with rice.
The Klutzy Cook Notes
- Turkey can be replaced with chicken or beef.
- Although marinating the meat is not critical, it does give it a bit of extra flavor.
- Use a total of 3 cups of vegetables, whatever is on hand. Just add the hard vegetables first for a little extra cooking before adding the soft vegetables.
