Why hello there, and welcome to “Jon is Slowly Disintegrating”, I’m your Dissolving Debutante, Jon O’Guin, and this post almost didn’t go up today, because I had a 5 hour migraine/killer of a tension headache Sunday night, so I almost didn’t have time to cook the meal or write the post. Luckily, such a tragic fate was avoided, and you can instead learn about Turkey Burgers. If you don’t want to learn, and just want to do, here’s a link to get to your voodoo. Everyone else, let’s dig in.

India D’India

So, Indian Spiced Turkey Burgers. A standard question after hearing that was my idea for today’s post was “why?” Or rather, it would have been, if I talked to anyone. Instead, I came up with the idea in solitude. Humorously, the answer to that question would have originally been a shrug and “laziness”: I had a recipe for them, India’s an oft-forgotten country when discussing Asia, at least in the US (we tend to think of “Asia” as East and the beginnings Southeast Asia: China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Often forgetting Mongolia, India, Indonesia, etc.), it seemed like a good match. It wasn’t until a day or two ago that I realized I actually had a great fucking ‘in’ on the piece: dinde!

Who or what is a dinde, you ask? It’s a Turkey! Specifically, it’s the French word for Turkey, which, like the English word, is pretty fucking wrong. Specifically, the French word was originally, as you may have guessed d’Inde, meaning “of India/The Indes”. Like how our word is a reference to the nation of Turkey. Neither of which is where Turkeys are from.

In case you failed geography, this is neither India nor Turkey.

Turkeys are native to North and Central (Which is still part of North, so I don’t know why that distinction is added) America, and were discovered by the “the Western world” (you know, the one EAST of America) by…well, we all know how the secrets of Central America were made known to Europe: That asshole Columbus, and friends. (By the way, “that asshole Columbus” is not some kind of modern-day revisionist opinion of him: he was REMOVED as Governor of his Caribbean island for being a monster and a dick by the very King and Queen who had funded his expedition. Exactly HOW bad he was is somewhat up for debate, since especially following the Eighty Years’ War, a bunch of Dutch and English authors spent a lot of time accusing the Spanish of doing a LOT of terrible shit.) And when the Spaniards arrived, the natives called the birds guajolote, (or, rather, that’s the much easier way the Spanish chose to spell a word that used to have 2 hyphens, an x, and ended in a “tl”). So why are the American guajolote called “turkeys” Well, historians say one of two things happened: either the first English speakers to see Turkeys assumed they were a type of guineafowl (a bird already known to Europe, thanks to Turkish merchants bringing them from Africa and Asia), and mislabeled them (“My word, what great Turkey-coqs!”) or…well, not to put too fine a point on it, but England called a LOT of shit “Turkey” back in the day, rather than put in the time to learn where shit from further East than Germany came from, because a lot of those products were sold by Turkish merchants to English ones. There’s evidence of Hungarian, Persian, and Indian products all being labeled “Turkey” in English markets. So, Spanish merchants bring back live Turkeys, and start breeding/selling them in the hotter parts of the Mediterranean, including Turkey and the Middle East, who then sell them to the English, who call them “Turkey birds” because, to them, they’re COMING from Turkey. Basically, “Turkey” was the “Oriental” of its day: “It’s not any of the specific types of Foreign I care enough to learn the name of, so it gets the broad one”.

This rug was made by Kazaks, but it had the same label as rugs made in Persia, India, Morocco, and China.

Which is useful, because guess what we also tried doing for a while with the word “India”? You know that story that Christopher Columbus was so stupid that he thought he was in India when he reached the Caribbean? That story, like the stories about his cruelty, is only half right. He didn’t think he had reached “the area we now call India”. He thought he had reached The Indies, which is what they called India and most of Southeast Asia, back in the day. He thought he had found new, undiscovered islands east of Papua New Guinea. Which…technically he was right? In a very dumb way. Like, he’s still MORE wrong than you are: The edge of Papua New Guinea is 4,000 miles from the coast of India, and 10,000 miles from the Caribbean, but he wasn’t QUITE as dumb as we imply he is. (This, by the way, is why there are now “The East Indies”, referring to India and Southeast Asia, and “The West Indies”, referring to many of the Caribbean islands.)

And that’s what happened in French: while the English were calling Turkeys that because they were being handed them by Turks, The French at least knew they were “from the Indies”, or “d’Inde”, and eventually, “dinde”. So the word for India is built into the WORD for Turkey in at least one language, AND, in English, there is a history of Indian things being calling Turkey/Turkish. It’s a win-win thanks to old-timey lazy racism!

That last sentence feels weirder the longer I let it sit, so let’s quickly get to the recipe.

Mix, Mold, Mash, Mustard

So, this is actually a very simple recipe, with JUST enough steps and ingredients to feel daunting, but I assure you: a quick grocery trip to basically any supermarket can get you what you need, and this is basically a dish of 4 “components”, all of which are very easy to make on their own. But before I begin, a quick accreditation: today’s recipe is a halfway point/lazy version of two recipes I found for the same idea, one from America’s Test Kitchen, and one from Rachel Ray. The Rachel Ray version is for a “Lamb Vindaloo Burger”, and just has a note in the middle of the recipe to use “1.5 pounds lamb or turkey”. She has you hand-make a raita (an Indian dip/sauce made of Yogurt, typically mixed with vegetables and herbs, and used as a “cooling” agent: you get a spicy dish, and serve it with Raita.), make your own vindaloo paste, mix a patty of grated onion and diced cilantro, brush the patty with a chutney-mustard-glaze…and that sounded EXHAUSTING. Probably delicious, but I knew I was going to be making this in Leavenworth, after a potential Sunday crowd, probably with a drink or two in me. So this was going to NEED streamlining.

The America’s Test-Kitchen recipe, on the other hand, was much less involved: their replacement for the raita was just a smear of greek yogurt, their patties were a mixture of Turkey, some seasonings, and a bit of butter (most ground turkey is VERY low in fat), with just a dollop of Mango Chutney on the finished burger.

Sidebar: Going to go out on a limb, and guess that “Grey” is not a traditional Indian last name.

Now, originally, I considered doing something of a closer fusion between the two…and then, as noted at the start of the post, I got back from work at around 4:50, and proceeded to be incapacitated by a headache until 9:30. I think it was my classic Leavenworth mistake of “dry-fried”: Leavenworth during the summer is hotter and drier than Port Orchard, and the food tends to be more sodium-rich, especially at the places I prefer to eat. So I can get dehydrated pretty quickly if I forget to compensate. And Sunday I accidentally doubled down with a salty breakfast AND Lunch, and then an after-work drink. So it’s not surprising I gave myself a headache, it was the severity that shocked me.

Anywho, after a nap, a shower, another nap, some medication, and a third nap, I eventually flopped into functionality, and got working on a now slightly reduced plan of action, which would consist of 4 components:

1. A Cheater’s Raita

2. The Mango-Mustard Glaze

3. Perked Up, but not Perfect, Patties

4. Some vegetables and buns.

My Cheater’s Raita is VERY MUCH cheating, since it’s just 2 tbsp of yogurt-based Cucumber Tzatziki Salad dressing mixed with 2 tbsp of greek yogurt and 1/8th tsp cumin.

Yogurt sauces: not super visually appealing, but often quite tasty.

The Mango-Mustard Glaze was going to basically just be lifted wholesale from the Rachel Ray recipe, consisting of ¼ cup Mango Chutney mixed with some Dijon and a little water. If you’ve never used Mango Chutney before, it’s a little hard to explain, but it’s basically a mixture of fruit, spices, vinegar, and sugar, sort of a mid-point between a Mango salsa and a sort of pickle-relish meets fruit-jam.

A truly appealing description and depiction.

It’s actually quite good in a lot of instances, and Chutneys as a whole are a fascinating field to discuss. Here, you mix it with Dijon and a little water (to help emulsify the two) to form a thick sauce that’s sweet, a little spicy, and packed with flavor.

Look, we have to accept that some foods are visual messes. There is an ENTIRE show on Netflix about how some foods are Ugly, but Delicious.

You do want to keep an eye on it, as it will go from “doing nothing” to “Suddenly violently boiling” in a blink of an eye, and the sugars in the chutney will burn if cooked too long/too hot.

The two sauces made, it’s time for the Perked Up, but not Perfect, Patties. I was GOING to see about working some of the onion into the patty, as well as some tomato paste, but the lost time and residual brain drain caused me to push past that, and go with “basically just the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, but with some chopped cilantro”.

This may look like a lot of cilantro, but it’s actually a small cutting board.

The cilantro was mostly for novelty, since, as I’ve mentioned before, my brother hates cilantro, so we don’t cook with it in Port Orchard if we can help it. To that, we also have some melted butter to add fat to the mixture, along with one pound of turkey, 2 tsps of Worchestershire, and 1 tsp of Garam Masala. The Worchestershire adds umami, and the Garam Masala adds Indian spice, via a mixture of cinnamon, clove, black pepper, cardamom, and other warming spices. I got mine from a local tea and spice shop that I adore in Leavenworth, since it was $8 for a container at Safeway, or $2 an ounce from Cup and Kettle.

This is not an ad, I just think the labeling adds a little visual flair to what is otherwise a bag of brown dust.

Mix it all together, along with a little salt and pepper, which I definitely forgot, and then cook your burgers. You could grill them, but the recipes assume you’re cooking inside, so fry in a oiled pan where they won’t stick.

I forgot to indent these suckers before frying, so I had to do so right after this picture.

After 5ish minutes on the first side, you flip them, turn the heat down, and brush on some of the Mango-Mustard glaze, to get the flavor soaking in/glazing the meat. This will, of course, take two hands, so I couldn’t take any pictures of the process, and Joe was busy explaining to me 3/4s of the 4th season of My Hero Academia. (The phrase “his arms flew off like Meat Popsicles” was a stand-out description)

While they sear, thinly slice some red onion, and chop/tear a little more cilantro, or you can wait until you pull them, since they’ll need to rest about 5 minutes. Assemble the burgers with raita on the bottom bun, then some red onion, then the patty. Spread a little more Mango-Mustard glaze on top, sprinkle with cilantro, and maybe another smear of raita on the top bun, and you’re ready to serve.

See, it all works together!

And the results are pretty good. I’m particularly proud of the burgers themselves, because they’re a specific change I made from BOTH recipes, which made 4 patties out of 1.5 pounds, meaning each patty would be .375 pounds, which I had felt was too much meat on the Bibimbap burgers, so this time, I just used 1 pound for 3 patties, which Joe thought was “a perfect amount of burger”. Joe thought the dish was ‘really good’, as well, and I agree with him. Like the Hoisin burgers I made, the flavor in the meat isn’t overpowering, it’s just enough to keep things interesting. I think with the extra salt and pepper, they’ll pop even more. I even had a moment where I was forced to think if I’ve liked a beef burger I’ve had in the last month as much as I liked this turkey burger. Maybe it was just the harmony of the burger, with everything working together, but I legitimately had a moment of “this is not just good for a turkey burger, it’s good for a burger, period.” So I definitely recommend you try making your own batch!

THURSDAY: WE CHUT UP AND DANCE, OR SOME BETTER PUN, IT’S GETTING LATE AND I’M SURPRISINGLY TIRED GIVING THE NUMBER OF NAPS I TOOK TO GET OVER THE HEADACHE.

MONDAY: I MIGHT FUCKING CALL IN SICK AT THIS RATE. LET ME GET TO MY DAYS OFF, AND I’LL SEE IF I THINK OF SOMETHING.

And here's the

Recipe

Indian-Spiced Turkey Burger

Serves 3

Ingredients

Turkey Patties

1 pound ground Turkey

2 tbsp melted butter, cooled

1 tbsp chopped cilantro or parsley

2 tsp Worchestershire sauce

1 tsp Garam masala

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Cheater’s Raita

2 tbsp Greeky Yogurt

2 tbsp Tzatziki, Yogurt-based Ranch Dressing, or similar product

Mango Mustard Glaze

1/3 cup mango Chutney

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp water

The rest

½ red onion, thinly sliced

¼ cup cilantro, torn into sprigs

3 buns

Preparation

Mix together all Turkey patty ingredients except vegetable oil (do not over-work), and shape into 3 patties, making an indentation in the middle for cooking.
Preheat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, until just smoking. While it heats, stir together Cheater’s Raita in a small bowl, and mix together Mango-Mustard glaze in a small saucepan over medium-low heat.
Once oil is smoking, add turkey patties, cooking on the first side until well-browned, about 5 minutes. Flip, and reduce the heat to medium low, cooking for another 5 minutes. In the last 2 minutes, brush with 2/3rds of Mango-Mustard glaze. Remove from the pan, and let rest 5 minutes.
Assemble the burgers, spreading Raita on the buns, then the red onion, burger patty, additional glaze if desired, cilantro, and top bun.