When I’m creating a Quick Kitchen dish, I just start by seeing what people can buy at the market. I like to learn to use things that others wouldn’t normally try. Sometimes the ingredient I’m looking for is right under my nose.
When I started creating an entrée salad for the Quick Kitchen section of our August issue, I first used a smoked duck breast and made cracklings with the skin. Everyone loved the combination of smoky, sweet, and crunchy. (Who doesn’t love duck?) But the technique was too involved; it wasn’t quick at all.
So I wandered around my local ShopRite, looking for something smoky that would go well with fruit. I remembered a Beet Consommé I had created for the Christmas issue two years ago. That light borchst had an elusive meatiness from the store-bought smoked turkey wings that I had used in the stock.
Smoked turkey parts are just great. They’re like delicious, high-quality Virginia-baked ham—without the pork taste. Rather than getting a whole ham, you can buy just as much smoked turkey as you need. Sold in small parts (wings, legs, thighs), smoked turkey is readily available in the refrigerated meat section of most supermarkets. And it’s cheap—less than two dollars a leg. For a drumstick, all you have to do is remove the sinews, which is very easy to do.
So, instead of trying to make my complicated duck salad easy, I changed directions and worked on developing a smoked-turkey salad that was easy to begin with. I’m a big fan of bitter greens, but I think they always need to be balanced with something sweet, so I added both sweet plum and bitter radicchio. The dressing is a play of tart and sweet with the balsamic and brown sugar, and toasted pecans add a little additional smokiness.
With smoked turkey, I discovered a way to get great smoky, hammy flavor without bringing any pork to the table.
The combination of interesting flavors and textures—sweet, salty, and crunchy—makes this fast salad a satisfying main course.
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