There are times it’s good to disguise ground turkey as ground beef to bring some healthy benefits to our family’s eating possibly without their knowledge.  This time, I think it’s best to acknowledge that it’s a whole different product and enjoy it for what it is.

This turned out very well, and everyone enjoyed the lighter flavours very much.  I didn’t make the gravy because I served it with whipped sweet potatoes, but it sounds like an excellent thing to make with any sort of poultry where there may not be much in the way of actual drippings so I’ll try it another day.

I’m writing the recipe here it as I got it but I’m adding my changes too.  Really, we make most dishes our own based on our cooking style and family habits and regional customs too.  For me, I cook low to no salt, and because of that I try to maximize the herbal flavors though I don’t usually have a ton of fancy things on hand.

I usually leave my onion chunkier in beef loaf, but the recipe stressed “finely chopped” so I did that and found in this case it works really well with the texture and flavor of the ground turkey for the turkey loaf. 

I did make the whole thing more ‘mine’ by cutting up some of the top of the celery bunch, cutting the leaves and all extremely fine and giving them an extra dice for good measure, I got that idea to use the leaves too because of the parsley and it worked nicely giving that extra celery flavor and looking very pretty in the sliced loaf.  Plus, I just love celery leaves.

Also, I didn’t have any fresh rosemary, so I used about 1 tsp dry and smooshed it with my mortar and pestle along with my salt, pepper and some dry tarragon as well.

Oh, and it’s ROUND, so it gets cut into pie shaped wedges which is kinda fun too!

The Loaf

1 ¼ lb ground turkey

1 egg

1 Tblsp tomato paste

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/3 c dry bread crumbs

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 small celery stalk, finely chopped

2 Tblsp flat leaf parsley, chopped

2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped

Well, I had over the amount of turkey requested, so I used 1 ½ lbs ground turkey.  That’s not all that much over, but I still used an extra large egg, Curious George’s egg in fact, hers are always the biggest.  I also upped the bread crumbs to ½ cup.

Preheat the oven to 350° F and oil a 9 x 13 pan, I used olive oil, you use what you like.

Beat egg, tomato paste, salt, pepper and other seasonings all together, toss in diced up veggies then the meat and mix very lightly, then sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly so it’s easy to get them mixed in without compacting the meat too much.

I put a little olive oil on my hands and rolled the meat into a ball so when I put it on the pan, it’s a domed shape round loaf.  The book had this use a bowl to shape it thing in it, kinda silly to dirty another dish though, these guys are obviously used to having people to do their clean up for them! 

Bake at 350º for about 1 hr 15 min or until an instant read thermometer 165 deg F.

The Gravy

2 Tblsp unsalted butter

2 Tblsp all purpose flour

2 cups chicken stock

2 tsp chopped fresh sage

Salt and Pepper to taste

Pan drippings

Melt butter, whisk in flour, cook that about a minute, whisk in the stock and add the deglazed pan drippings if you have any, simmer to reduce a bit, strain then add the sage and salt and pepper to taste.

This does sound quite good!!  And you are right, many recipes can be changed up to our own likes, etc.  But I have been using herbs quite a bit lately, because we also have to be little/no salt here, and it really does taste better with the herbs than the salt!!!!

My ex's mother always did her meatloaf this way!!!  I made it my way for the first time and he asked me WHAT is was!!!!  He had grown up with it being round and cut up like a pie.