It’s hard to make a turkey burger taste good. You kind of need to season the hell out of it. We mixed a pound of ground turkey with a minced half-onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, an egg, and — CJ’s idea — 1/2 tsp each cinnamon and cumin. Kind of a turkofta. Onions keep it from getting dry, spices keep it from getting bland. I blog it in order to remember it.
In other news, this New York Times gazpacho smoothie is ace and we’ve been making it three times a week. The suggested pecorino crackers are too salty and unnecessary.
We’re in the heart of tomato season now and I’m buying about 10 lb a week. Did you know there was a Paul Robeson tomato? Once you sang on Broadway and battled for civil rights, Paul Robeson. Now you are in my smoothie.
A panade is also good for turkey burgers–or for any well-done burgers too. Just cut a slice of white sandwich bread into 1inch pieces and mash them with some milk until a paste forms, then incorporate into the meat.
Is the tomato very, very red? Paul Robeson deserves more than a tomato, damnit. I suppose it is a good start. There is a theater in Buffalo named after him.
As you might expect, it is black.
That’s horrible.
I also expected a deep shade of red.
Re Harald’s comment: sorry, I should have explained that “black,” for a tomato, indeed means “very dark shade of red.”
Hi Jordan! I found your blog after running into your very nice bnreview article today through Arts & Letters Daily. In any case I too was surprised by the existence of a Paul Robeson tomato. I daresay we might have chosen to plant this tomato last spring for no other reason than its name. The tomatoes made for such a fantastic tomato and mozzarella salad that I half expected our dinner to transform into a delicious civil rights rally before dessert.