the review: ground meat with potatoes and peas

You’ll notice from the title of this post that I did not use ground turkey in the ground turkey with potatoes and peas last night. This may have been because there wasn’t any at the grocery store. Or it may have been because I had ground meat in the freezer that I needed to use. No matter. I strained off the extra fat so we can pretend that it was turkey.

It took us a minute to decide if we liked this recipe. In the end, we decided it was good. It definitely needs a little sprucing up and we both had (very different) ideas about how to do that. However, at its bones, this is a good recipe. It is simple and quick and basic enough to lend itself to some changes in flavor such that it could be very versatile. For example, with the right seasonings, this could make really good meat hand pies. Or if you are short on meat, you could add more potato to stretch it. You could add curry and turmeric to give it a more Indian flavor, or cut switch the cilantro with parsley to head more towards Italian.

Aside from subbing ground beef for ground turkey, I used about a half of a can of chopped tomatoes instead of one fresh (forgot the tomato at the store) and frozen peas instead of fresh. I also used substantially more cumin, salt, and pepper than the recipe called for, and still needed to add sriracha. I think the flavor could be improved by changing the cooking order a bit. I followed the instructions pretty closely (despite my substitutions) last night but think I would change the order of things a bit in the future. For example, I think the flavor of the meat would be improved if you cooked the garlic and whites of the green onion first, then added the meat, then added seasoning before adding the tomato mixture. Using a can of Rotel tomatoes instead of regular tomato would also help season the meat and be good with the existing cumin.

I’d be curious to see what other flavor combinations could be mixed in here. Try it out. Let me know what you think.