Little Thai Turkey Loaves

What's for dinner?

This recipe is adapted from Food Network: Little Thai Turkey Loaves, actually simplified based on what I already have in the kitchen.

 

These are delicious, fairly quick to put together and very forgiving in terms of ingredients

. The original recipe calls for lemongrass and cilantro which taste great in here, but I don't usually have them on hand and I often make this for a quick weeknight dinner.  They are to be mixed in a food processor, but that seemed like too much work to clean up, so I chop and mince with a knife.  It also called for rice, but I've always liked a little bit of oatmeal in my meatloaf, so I thought I'd try that here and it adds nicely to the texture (isn't oatmeal good for you, too?!)  The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup Thai peanut sauce, but the sauce that I have in my refrigerator now is very spicy and I don't like that much heat, just a bit of flavor, so I adjusted here, too.

Thai Turkey Loaves 

Ingredients

• 2 medium scallions, trimmed and sliced
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
  
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest, finely grated
• 2 medium garlic cloves, minced
  
• 1 pound ground turkey 
• 1/2 cup oatmeal (right out of the box)
• 1 (14-ounce) can unsweetened coconut
  
• 1/4 cup + 2 teaspoons spicy Thai peanut sauce
• 2 teaspoons Asian toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Coat 6 muffin-pan cups with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

Mix the scallions, lemon zest, onion, and garlic together in a large bowl.

Add the turkey, rice, 1/2 cup coconut milk, 1/4 cup peanut sauce, and the sesame oil and mix thoroughly.

Pack the turkey mixture into the muffin-pan cups and bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of a loaf registers 170 degrees F, 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, make a sauce by whisking the remaining coconut milk with the remaining peanut sauce, peanut butter and soy sauce over low heat.  Adjust to taste.

To serve, unmold the loaves onto a heated platter and garnish scallions, if desired. Pass the sauce – either at room temperature or slightly warmed.

Serves 6 (makes six loaves, but usually only serves four in my house- hubby and grown children eat at least 2 balls, as we call the loaves, at one meal)

Enjoy and please let me know if your family likes these as much as mine and how you adapted the recipe.  Thanks.