December 30, 2015 Lunch – Le Troquet, Dinner – Turkey Curry

December 30, 2015 Lunch – Le Troquet, Dinner – Turkey Curry

I went to lunch with Peter Eller.  I wanted to eat a French meal, so I suggested the $12.95 lunch at Le Troquet, which is my favorite French lunch place in Albuquerque for two reasons, the French Onion soup appetizer and the chocolate Mousse dessert.  The usually important entree is irrelevant to me, because the soup and dessert are so good.  Lately the entrée has been sautéed calf’s liver garnished with a balsamic reduction sauce served with a tomato Provençal with a lovely olive oil toasted bread crumb topping, a steamed carrot and two asparagus tips. 

The liver was just right, not too firm and not too slimy, tender and a little toothy.

The French Onion soup is also very delicious.  The broth is enriched to a rich dark brown with Maggie or some other enrichment sauce.  The soup is topped with a crouton and oven melted French Gruyere in the traditional manner.  For that matter everything at Le Troquet is prepared in the traditional manner.  The mousse is perfect, a bit firm because refrigerated but a nice full parfait cup portion and a combination of dark and milk chocolate.  So a really good a French meal for $12.95.

Peter and I both liked lunch.

In the continuing saga of using PPIs, I wanted to make curry with the PPI turkey, the roasted butternut squash, a sweet potato, and several apples.  I usually make a curry with madras curry powder.  Today I used a curry powder that Luke gave us that has a bit of cayenne in it.  

I peeled and chopped 1 sweet potato and a large onion and Sautéed them in 1 Tbsp. of canola oil.  I then added four or five chopped cloves of garlic and two cubed apples sprinkled with curry powder.  I cut up 1/2 roasted PPI butternut squash and put it into the pot I had made the mulled Apple juice in with the four cinnamon sticks and some lemon and orange zest, cloves, and nutmeg still in it.  I added the sautéed onions, apples, sweet potato and garlic mixture that I had sautéed for about twenty minutes to soften to the pot with enough water to cover the vegetables and about 1 Tbsp. of curry powder to the pot plus about 1 lb. of diced turkey and 1/2 cup of raisins and cooked it for about thirty minutes until the sauce thickened a bit and all the ingredients seemed to be integrated.  I then added 2 Tbsp. of heavy cream and stirred it in.

Suzette heated some of the PPI rice Susan prepared and we had a great curry dinner.

This was a healthy fresh hot meal that used up lots of PPIs.  I froze the remaining turkey.  

Bon Appetit