Turkey Bolognese from Fine Cooking Magazine, October/November 2010

Many years ago I was ranting to my Dad via an e-mail conversation about.....someone.....we'll just leave it at that. He had met this person before so he knew the truth about what I was saying. In one response he that this person's hubristic comportment would catch up some day. I said, "Huh?"  This was the Th.D. that's written several college textbooks and taught for decades coming out. I called my husband over to the computer (You thought it was him, didn't you? Admit it, you did.) and asked him if he knew exactly what hubristic comportment was. He grabbed at the dictionary and we went searching. Apparently, this person conducts themselves arrogantly. Yeah, I can live with that.

Since that day, we've used the term hubristic comportment often and it always makes me giggle and Hubby chuckle. Today I have to hang my head in shame and admit that I cooked with hubristic comportment. Actually, by the time I got down to cooking, I was well humbled. It was the prep work that was sprinkled heavily with hubris.

You see, in one of my Quick Takes, I joke around about a comment that chef and culinary teacher made about how if you can't use a knife without hurting yourself, you have no business in the kitchen. I wasn't mocking him, as he well knows, but I was being a bit flip. I think I would change his comment a bit to say, "If you don't respect your knife, you have no business picking it up."

I was distracted today as I did the prep work for the Turkey Bolognese. I was distracted and hurried because the family was hungry. There was a lot of fine chopping to do so I grabbed my big chef knife and the knife steel and was sharpening the knife while thinking about other things. As I started chopping the carrot, I realized the knife was very, very sharp. Then I cut my finger. Not badly, more of a scrape. It only needed the ministrations of Dudette and one of her Spiderman Band-aids and it was fine. Within five minutes of having cut my index finger, hubristic comportment reared its ugly head and I distractedly brought the knife down solidly on the side of my middle finger. I didn't respect my knife and give it the attention it deserved. I have a butterfly bandage on it right now, but if it doesn't look better in the morning, I'll head to the doc. It was dumb.

Respect your knife, friends. Seriously.

Once I was all bandaged up, I returned to the task of chopping and preparing for this dinner of leftover turkey. The leftovers came from dinner yesterday, the Roasted Turkey Breast, Porchetta Style. The The base of the Turkey Bolognese includes the turkey, pancetta, carrot, yellow onion, celery, and garlic. There's also fennel seed, crushed red pepper, bay leaf, parsley, canned diced tomatoes, white wine, chicken (or turkey) broth and milk. Sounds good? It smelled fantastic while it was simmering.

That's the thing about this dish if you're wanting to make it quickly. It might get prepared in good time, but it needs to simmer a good while; at least an hour. In fact, I can guarantee that the leftovers we eat tomorrow will taste better than what we had for lunch today.

About ten minutes before the simmering was done, I got the pasta cooking so it would all finish at the same time, which it did. And, we sat down to eat.

This dish is really, really good. It beats any routine turkey noodle casserole I've had (which I shouldn't say since that's coming up in this issue). The sauce had a great amount of flavor and zing and was very refreshing. Dudette said at first that she didn't like it, but after a few more bites, she finished off her entire bowl. The main reason she didn't like it at first was that I had told her I was making pasta knowing she'd think I was making my spaghetti bolognese. My bad. Both Hubby and I had seconds, which was fine since this is also not a heavy meal. With low fat broth and milk, it's healthy eating as well as tasty.

If you have turkey in a couple of weeks, save a few cups and make this. You'll be very glad you did. Just remember to respect your knife.