Easy Turkey Ball Curry
Spiced with coriander and smoked paprika, these turkey balls are such a tasty treat. In this Easy Turkey Ball Curry, they are added to a gloriously spiced tomato curry sauce that is sure to tantalize your tastebuds.
Back in the day, before Brad Pitt gained and lost his swoon-worthiness, he played the part of “Paul”, an errant son in “A River Runs Through It“. This movie followed Paul and his brother as they fly-fished their way from boys to men, in the mountains of Missoula, Montana.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it – it was mesmerizing and haunting, heart breaking and thought provoking, it was filled with analogies that related back to this thing we call life.
There was one scene early on in this movie when a young Paul refused to eat his plate of oatmeal and sat there for hours! And when I say hours – I mean from breakfast to almost dinner time! When I first watched that scene, I couldn’t help chuckling!
Then, I had my daughter and guess what?! She would pull the exact same stunt every time I put a plate of veggies in front of her! Yup – now that scene was not so chuckle-inducing!
Back then, I would try to come up with games and little tricks to get her to eat at least a few veggies…and the distractions helped some. However, it wasn’t until I started employing my mom’s tactics that she started asking for seconds -of VEGGIES!
My mom’s tactic to get my sister and I to not only eat our veggies, but lick our plates clean was to put all vegetables into a curry. With coconut milk and onions and all sorts of spices – specially coriander and cumin – we hardly recognized the veggies we were devouring!
When I found out that this month’s Recipe Redux theme was “Spooky Spices“, I felt challenged to use coriander powder: a spice I have been a little conservative in using, in spite of my mom’s persuasions.
Coriander powder comes from the coriander seeds of the same plant that cilantro leaves come from. Yes, all parts of the coriander plant -even the roots- are used as flavor enhancers, but, each part has it’s own distinctive flavor.
While I did not add any veggies to this curry; diced carrots, peppers, and celery would be a wonderful taste and texture addition.
What I have done is add coriander powder to the turkey balls before they were baked, and to the curry, and topped it all off with cilantro. Tomato paste and coconut milk help marry all the spices and what you end up with is a curry with depth and flavor – that pairs well with rice or beet roti!
Ingredients
For the turkey balls:
- 3 tablespoons almond meal
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
For the curry
- 2 tbsp oil
- 2 onions diced
- 2 inch piece of ginger finely chopped
- 6 pieces garlic chopped
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup coconut milk can use almond milk or regular milk too
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon coriander
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder
- salt and pepper
- handful of cilantro
Instructions
For the turkey balls:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Add the almond meal, turkey, egg, coriander, cayenne, smoked paprika, salt,
and pepper together into a bowl and mix well. - Form into balls and bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and set aside.
For the curry:
- Add diced onions and oil to a pan over medium heat and saute 10 minutes.
- Grate the ginger and add it along with the copped garlic to the onion and saute 5 minutes.
- Then add in the water, coconut milk, tomato paste, coriander, cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne, turmeric powder, red chili powder and mix well.
- Then ad in the baked turkey balls and cover and simmer 5 more minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with cilantro and enjoy!
Nutrition
Yum! I love coriander! It doesn’t get enough love!
You are spot on, Rebecca!
This recipe looks great, but I am allergic to almonds. Is there something I can substitute for the almond meall?
Thanks so much – yes, regular flour would work and so would ground up oats or even rice flour – I used all of them before in my turkey balls and have had no complaints – hope this helps 🙂
This looks so amazing! Love anything with curry!
Thank you so much Courtney!
SO SO SO many herbs and spices I would never ever ever think to use in this recipe! Ha. I am such a lazy cook in the kitchen… You do not want to see behind the scenes footage, that’s for sure. lol
But I do really want to have some turkey balls now.
GiGi – “duuuude” – you DEFINITELY DO NOT – I repeat DO NOT wanna see behind the scenes in my kitchen either – it looks like it was ravaged by a tornado and in the crossfire of a WAR -all at the same time, when I’am done cooking! Cleaning up can be a wprkout!
What a delicious comfort food, Shashi! We actually grew cilantro in our garden this year. I figured I use enough of it that I should grow some. It did ok, but it went to seed really quickly..but that means coriander! I really should go pick those little coriander seeds and use them in something before the winter snows cover them all up. I think this curry would be a great use of the seeds…and I can assure you that it would make Laura very happy. (She is obsessed with all things curry.)
Thanks David – I never have any luck growing cilantro – my hat’s off to you and Laura! Dang, if I was your neighbor, I would pick the seeds off – for y’all of course and in exchange you could let me “borrow” some of y’alls candy apples! deal?!
Hi Shashi, love curry, and this looks so wonderful with the tomatoes and everything. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much Cheri!
Oh I love that movie, my other favorite is Legends of the Fall. I also love your curry, meatballs are a particular favorite of mine and your turkey meatballs sound great. Love the spicing.
Thanks so much Suzanne! I used to love all the movies Brad Pitt id early on in his career – but I never watched Legends of the Fall – I need to look for it on Netflix and queue it up for the weekend!
Oh my…. YES YES YES!! The flavors, the health factor… ohhh, the swoon-worthy nature of these meatballs is just… *sigh* I think I love you, Shashi! <3
Hahahahaha!!! OH Becca – you totally made my day! I <3 you too, funny lady!
I can’t tell you how much I love this dish. It has literally two of the things I love most. Turkey meatballs and curry sauce.
I’m going to make this very soon, it looks just too good!
Thanks Mike! So – if you make it – please let me know what ya think…
Coriander is one of my FAVORITE spices ever. Especially because we are kinda A LOT obsessed with curries and meatballs. HOW DID YOU KNOW?
Pinned!
Haha – I think I must be psychic – or psycho – you pick! Wait – that might not be a good idea…. 🙂
Thanks so much lady!
Looks delicious!
Thanks so much!
Throwing the vegetables into the actual dish is a reeeeeally great way to get kiddos to eat their veggies! Oh and great minds think alike because I have a meatball recipe coming up soon!
Thanks so much Erin – I cannot wait to see your meatball recipe!!!
This looks and sounds so good! I can’t wait to try this…and I hear you on getting kids to eat their veggies – always such a trick!
Haha – I know right!!!
Thanks so much Jeanette
I love that movie. And I totally remember that scene. I love that curry was your mom’s way to get you to eat your veggies.
Katie – my mom is the curry queen – when she and my dad visited us when my daughter was younger, she would make this “yellow curry with broccoli” and my daughter ate it like I eat chocolate!
mmmm. I’m obsessed with turkey meatballs and a big curry fan too.. this recipe sounds really good and spooky of course.
Ha – thanks so much Kristina!
This looks so amazing! I love that curry gravy.
Thanks Angie! Coconut milk is so amazing at thickening up curry gravy! 🙂