Roasted Turkey with Spicy Coconut Milk and Lemon Grass Sauce

If you have been looking around for a fresh turkey recipe, here is a special turkey recipe with eastern flavor.  Note that the ingredients listed here is for one kilogram of turkey, so if you want to use more than a kilogram of turkey, be sure to multiply the ingredients proportional to the actual weight.

Ingredients:

1 kg of fresh turkey – cut into medium pieces (serves 4).

Ingredients for sauce:

5 sticks of lemon grass

80 gm of dried chili

8 pieces of shallots

2 pieces of onions

3 cloves of garlic

1 inch of ginger

1 inch of galangal

300 ml of fresh coconut milk

1 teaspoonful of tamarind

Oil to stir fry

Salt and sugar to taste

Preparation:

1. Clean the turkey then put it aside.

2. Remove the skin and clean the ingredients for sauce.  Blend together dried chilies, shallots, onion and garlic so that you get a fine paste.  If you are not used to spicy food, reduce the amount of chilies so that you will have a milder taste.  Pound ginger, galangal and lemon grass separately a few times, just enough to let their flavor blend with the sauce when they are cooked.  Moreover, you can easily remove these rather coarse ingredients when the sauce is served.

3. Heat the oil in a pot or deep pan (big enough to let the turkey in later) and stir fry the paste. Use medium heat and stir the paste carefully until you get a nice aroma.  Add in coconut milk, ginger, galangal, lemon grass, tamarind, and a little bit of salt and sugar.  Let it be a little low on salt and sugar as we will simmer this sauce later to make it thicker. And in turkey pieces and simmer under low heat until the turkey is half-cooked.

4. Remove the half-cooked turkey.  Continue to simmer the sauce until it is thicker.  Add salt and sugar to taste (where necessary).

5. Roast the half-cooked turkey. Turn and smother with the sauce every now and then (while roasting) until it is fully cooked and golden brown.

6. Place the turkey on a plate and pour the sauce to serve.