When you hear the word turkey, what do you think of? To the country of Turkey or to the great bird, the turkey.
It is no wonder that on 4 December 2021, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a presidential circular calling for exports to be labeled as being “Made in Türkiye”. The circular also said that in relation to other governmental communications, “necessary sensitivity will be shown on the use of the phrase ‘Türkiye’ instead of phrases such as ‘Turkey,’ ‘Türkei,’ ‘Turquie’ etc.” The official reason given in the circular for preferring Türkiye was that it “represents and expresses the culture, civilization, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way”. According to Turkish state broadcaster TRT, it was also to avoid a pejorative association with the bird that shares the same name in the English language.
But back to the bird.
The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. The earliest turkeys evolved in North America over 20 million years ago. They share a recent common ancestor with grouse, pheasants, and other fowl. The wild turkey species is the ancestor of the domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago by indigenous peoples. It was this domesticated turkey that later reached Eurasia, during the Columbian exchange.
In English, the name “turkey” probably comes from birds being brought to Britain by merchants trading to Turkey and thus becoming known as turkey coqs or turkey-cocks.
But, today we’re cooking. We’re going to make a turkey roll with pancetta. Make sure it’s from the bird, not the country.
So we need one large turkey thin steak, pancetta, sun-dried tomatoes and cheese of your choise (I used mozzarella). And for the coating 1 teaspoon of honey and 2 teaspoons of mustard (1 tsp regular mustard, 1 tsp whole grain mustard).
Place the steak between two layers of cling film or baking paper and pound it until it is really thin. The thickness should not exceed 5 millimetres.
Lightly salt and pepper the steak on the underside. Then make a honey and mustard coating and thinly spread the steak on the top side.
Prepare the pancetta, grate the cheese and cut the sun-dried tomatoes into small pieces.
First, cover the top of the steak with the pancetta, then sprinkle the cheese over it and top with the sun-dried tomatoes. You can also add some dried fruit. Apricots or raisins are good choices.
Carefully roll the steak into a roll and tie it with kitchen string.
Quickly fry roll in hot oil on all sides. This takes about 5 minutes. When it is fried, move it to a baking tray, pour over the oil and juice in which it was fried and pour over 1 dl of water.
Bake in a preheated conventional oven at 180 °C, 30 minutes. After this time, take it out of the oven, pour over its own juices that it released during baking. Then bake it for another 15 minutes until it gets a nice golden brown crust.
Once baked, wrap it in aluminum foil for 10 minutes and let it rest. Then cut it into desired slices and serve. Use whatever your heart desires for the side dish.
Turkey roulade with pancetta is excellent both, warm, served immediately after baking, and cold, cut into thin slices.
And last but not least, let your imagination run free.