In my family, the turkey curry is as much a part of Christmas as the big roast itself – creamy pies and overstuffed sandwiches are all very well, but after the joyous orgy of bread sauce and roast potatoes on the 25th, our palates cry out for something a little more lively. You could go for Nigella Lawson’s bang bang turkey, or novelist Kamila Shamsie’s delicious-sounding biryani; Naomi Duguid’s zingy, Thai/Lao-style turkey salad or the jambalayas, Mexican moles and other festive favourites suggested by Twitter correspondents, but, for us, leftover turkey calls for curry of the vaguely Indian variety.
I say vaguely, because, just as roast turkey isn’t a big deal in India, having leftovers of this kind to use up isn’t the norm, either; as chef Maunika Gowardhan tells me, when she was growing up, “homes didn’t always have ovens in India, so roasting meat wasn’t a common practice … if tikkas were made, they’d be reheated and served with chutney and roti”. One of my Twitter field reporters, Piya Sengupta, agrees: “Where I am from, this would be rare. Meat preparations are generally in a sauce to begin with. Leftovers might involve changing the gravy a bit, but you seldom have relatively plain cooked meat to cover with sauce to reuse.”
In short, this will always be a very British kind of Indian-ish curry: a true fusion of culinary, if not festive traditions. It should be fairly quick and easy to make, too, and not require much in the way of fresh ingredients, fridge space being at a premium at this time of year. Using up other likely leftovers will score extra bonus points. So what’s the best way to make it?
The fruity one
Many helpful souls online point me in the direction of the English colonial curry (hey, don’t shoot the messenger) in Delia Smith’s Christmas Collection, which is very similar to that in Helen Lawson’s version in her 1970 book, How to Make Good Curries, as favoured by Sue Vickers-Thompson, who also got in touch on Twitter. Both are fairly simple affairs, as befits a time when Indian ingredients were harder to come by in this country; Smith’s uses just turmeric, ginger and Madras curry powder in the way of spices, with a base of onion and celery fried in turkey fat, and a creamy sauce made from flour-thickened stock flavoured with grated creamed coconut and mango chutney.
Most retro of all, as far as my guests are concerned, is the fruit content – as well as chutney, the sauce boasts apple and sultanas, the last of which, in conjunction with curry powder, instantly transports us back a couple of culinary decades. Not in a bad way, you understand; this is pure nostalgic pleasure, but we agree we’d like something a little bit zingier to shake our palates out of their festive comfort blankets.
The almond one
The second recipe comes from another national treasure – the turkey korma in Mary Berry’s [rival] Christmas Collection deploys a few more spices (cumin, coriander, garam masala and cardamom, as well as fresh ginger), and features a sauce thickened with coconut cream and ground almonds, rather than flour, but also, intriguingly, contains green grapes. Again, it’s a crowdpleaser, yet not quite enough to rouse our tastebuds from their seasonal carb and cream coma. “Like a nice warm bath,” one tester says. Everyone (apart from the dog) likes warm baths, but personally I prefer them hot.
The coconutty one
One Tweeter, Richard Doxon, tells me that he made an “amazing” Anjum Anand turkey curry in 2010, but, tragically, the relevant copy of Sainsbury’s magazine disappeared into the recycling bin along with the recipe. Thanks to the magic of social media, however, he has now been reunited with it – and I get to try it for the first time. Anand prefaces this “flavourful but not spicy” curry by noting that roughly a fifth of Kerala’s population celebrates Christmas, though she admits turkey doesn’t tend to feature on the menu there. It is indeed flavourful, featuring a masala made from fennel seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, as well as mustard seeds, curry leaves, garlic, fresh ginger, turmeric and coriander, all in a coconut milk and tomato gravy, so it seems a shame to dilute these wonderfully aromatic ingredients with a pint of coconut milk at the end. Because the meat is necessarily just heated through, rather than cooked in the gravy as usual, this kind of curry does need a bit of extra help, whether by reducing the sauce or by adding extra seasoning or stock; a few chillies, as Anand suggests in her introduction, wouldn’t be unwelcome, either, though, of course, this depends on who you’re serving it to.
The yoghurt one
Olivia Potts is a woman after my own heart, introducing her turkey curry recipe in the Spectator with the observation that, on 27 December, “the last thing you really want is the same meal you’ve been eating for the past two days, looking a little tired and fridge-worn, all the best bits gone”. But, she says, “forget insipid, tepid, old-fashioned turkey curries: this one is packed full of aromatics and spice; it’s creamy and punchy and golden [with] … enough spinach to make you feel a little more human after your 25th Quality Street of the festive season.” There’s garam masala and cardamom and fresh ginger, yes, but the blessed warmth of Kashmiri chilli powder, too, plus turkey stock, yoghurt and a great handful of leaves. This one proves very popular with testers: it’s thicker than some of the others, and richer, with a kick of heat and a touch of sweetness from a spoonful of honey – plus some bonus green stuff to balance out the past four days of reckless self-indulgence.
The stir-fry
The other standout winner of our taste test comes from my colleague Meera Sodha, who describes her turkey curry with shredded brussels sprouts, caramelised onions and ginger as “more interesting than your traditional bubble and squeak … warming, spicy, healthy and tasty”. Leaving aside the vexed question of whether food has to be interesting to be enjoyable, she’s right: the cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg taste pleasingly festive and work brilliantly with the sweetness of the slow-cooked onions. It’s a wake-up for the tastebuds all right, but more like a stir-fry than the others: as one tester says: “Maybe this is me being a bit basic, but it would be nice to have some gravy.” Roast turkey breast can tend towards the dry, however skilfully it’s been prepared, so unless you’re lucky enough to have just dark meat left, a generous sauce is a good thing here.
The tomatoey one
It strikes me, looking at the five curries lined up on the table, that what’s lacking is a tomato-based number of the kind we generally favour at home, albeit with the help of a jar of curry paste rather than Raymond Blanc (and before you carp, he’s been in the UK far longer than I’ve been alive, so if Mary Berry is allowed to make turkey curries, so is he).
Blanc’s recipe starts with onion and garlic softened in large amounts of butter (so far, so French, I admit), but is then livened up with ginger, red chilli and more of the spices used by Anand and Sodha, as well as coriander and cumin. Most importantly, however, his tomato gravy is slow simmered before the meat is added, which means that it has an intense flavour all of its own; enough, along with Sodha’s version, to convince us that tomato should play a large part in this particular recipe – if you’ve done Christmas right, you should have already eaten enough beige sauce to last a lifetime, or perhaps just the next 11 months of it.
The conclusion
Though culinary traditions are among the most sacred and subjective of all festive matters, if you don’t have a favourite recipe for turkey curry, then this one, richly tomatoey and aromatic, yet creamy enough to have wide appeal, may well be the thing to give your leftovers a new lease of life. The sweet spices used by so many of the recipes above feel apt for the time of year, while the mild chilli heat can be adjusted to taste, depending on your audience. You can even make the base up to the end of the third step in the method several days in advance, then add the turkey, vegetables and dairy when reheating. Not only does this use up roast meat, but any sprouts or other greens you may have hanging around, as well as that half-jug of cream that’s been making eyes at you from the fridge for days. In fact, in the spirit of goodwill to all men, you could even add grapes from the cheeseboard. Just make sure you blame Mary Berry, not me.
Perfect turkey curry
Prep 15 min
Cook 55 min
Serves 4-6
50g butter
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick
2 onions, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled
40g ginger, peeled
1-2 tsp mild/Kashmiri chilli powder, to taste
½ tsp ground turmeric
800g tinned chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp sugar or honey
Salt, to taste
1 tsp garam masala
3 tbsp double cream or whole-milk yoghurt
About 500g roast turkey meat, roughly chopped or torn
10 brussels sprouts, shredded
Over a medium heat, melt the butter in a wide frying pan for which you have a lid, then add a teaspoon of the cumin seeds and the cinnamon stick, and cook for a minute, until aromatic. Add the onions, turn down the heat and cook, stirring occasionally to make sure they don’t catch and burn, until soft, golden and beginning to caramelise.
Meanwhile, pound the remaining cumin seeds to a powder, then set aside. Pound the garlic and ginger to a rough paste and stir these into the pan once the onions are ready. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the ground cumin, chilli powder and turmeric. Fry, stirring, for another two minutes, then pour in the chopped tomatoes and tomato puree.
Scrape any solids off the base of the pan, stir in the sugar and a good pinch of salt, bring to a simmer, then turn down the heat slightly and leave to bubble gently for about 20 minutes, until thickened.
Stir in the garam masala and cream, then add the turkey, cover the pan and leave to cook for about 10 minutes, until it has heated through.
Stir in the shredded sprouts, put the lid back on the pan and cook for about three minutes, until wilted. Taste for seasoning, then serve.
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