Friday, December 16, 2011

Day 1- Pumpkin-Turkey Ghoulash with Caraway Noodles


Day 1's recipe has been in my Epicurious recipe box for quite some time. It's gotten pretty cold, especially at night over the past month or so, and I absolutely love any kind of soups or stews. I also love pumpkin, so it seemed like the perfect combination.

Minus the caraway noodles. Cooking is all about modifications, right? I originally had no idea what caraway seeds were, but a good friend of mine found them at her local souk (market) and I took a whiff. I love licorice, but the thought of adding an anise type flavor to my noodles just didn't strike my fancy. So that's the first change. As the recipe is for eight servings, I'm also reducing it. Mohamed doesn't eat a lot of leftovers and I can only handle so much on my own.

The recipe calls for canned pumpkin- something I've never seen over here in Morocco. To solve this problem I used fresh pumpkin which I coated with butter, roasted, then put in the blender.

All of the ingredients ready to go

The first step is to coat the turkey in a spice mixture (mostly paprika- I used about half hot and half sweet) and cook for five minutes. After coating the onions and potatoes, you also add those to the pot and let fry for a few more minutes. I may have under estimated the size of the pot needed...


When the the turkey and veggies are preliminarily cooked, you add the chicken broth, garlic and additional spices. The stew simmers for an hour before you need to cook the noodles and serve. I haven't seen any egg noodles in Morocco, so I'm using some regular farfalle.



After the simmering, I thought the stew was a little thin, so I uncovered it and let it boil down a bit. Top the buttery noodles with the stew and bon appetit!


The verdict: Yummy! This was a great dish to have on a cold night. It's hearty, filling and flavorful. Using half hot/sweet paprika created quite a bit of heat. If you're not into that, I'd go a bit heavier on the sweet side. Also, when I make again I'd add more pumpkin as it got a little bit lost among the other ingredients. Mohamed liked it too, so that would be success on day one of the holiday recipe challenge. Yay!

Go here the complete recipe for Pumpkin-Turkey Ghoulash with caraway noodles. On deck for tomorrow is another Epicurious find- Roasted Cod on Large Garlic Croutons.


Photo by Con Poulos from Epicurious

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

Both recipes look delicious! I think you've missed your calling as a food photographer. Better call Choumicha!

t3reese said...

haha. thanks becky!