ground DARK turkey meat

I have two recipes for turkey meatballs (one from Giada dL and one from Everyday Food) and both caution that the meatballs will be more flavorful and moister if it is not super lean ground turkey, but rather dark. But the only ground turkey I have ever seen is of the Jenni-O variety at Jewel etc. and it is very much the lean, pale variety. Any leads where I can purchase dark or mixed ground turkey?

thanks!

bjt

Whole Foods meat counter. Ground turkey thigh is always on offer. 4.99 / lb if I'm not mistaken.

thanks Seebee! I will go grab some tomorrow.

ps Totally connect to your tagline . . . My mom schooled me from a very young age that Miracle Whip was not acceptable in any way and compared it to margarine vs butter (this was 1976 mind you when a lot of the world thought both Miracle Whip and margarine were the silver bullets).

bjt

bjt wrote:Any leads where I can purchase dark or mixed ground turkey?

While I have not seen ground dark turkey for sale, Fresh Farms, Niles grinds turkey thigh meat in-house for sausage. Call, ask for John Christakes in the meat dept, and I'd guess he will reserve for you.

Enjoy,
Gary

Fresh Farms
5740 W Touhy Ave
Niles, IL 60714
847-779-7343

FWIW, I've read that unless turkey meat specifies that it's breast meat, it's usually a mix heavy on the dark. Breast meat has about half the fat: 3.5 oz has 4 g of fat while the same amount of dark meat has 8g of fat. You might be able to suss it out by reading the nutrition label if the ground turkey is prepackaged. (personal aside - ground white meat? blecch.)

WF definitely has it always. they carry both ground white and dark meat from a local source, and it's much higher quality than jenny Anything.

the dark meat is a $1/# cheaper than the white... and it's on sale every now and then, they recently had the ground dark meat (thighs) for $2.99/#...

I purchased the ground thigh meat at WF for $4.99/pound. When I was driving home up Broadway, I noticed the the African Market on Broadway, south of Foster, had a big hand-painted sign that read "We have ground turkey meat." (Like a sign from the ground turkey gods or something?) I didn't have time to go check it out and I realized I have never been to that market. So I will go investigate someday soon. A neighbor did tell me that you can buy those roasted Jumbo turkey legs a la Renaissance Faire action there.

Anyhow, I used Giada DeLaurentis' Turkey Meatball recipe. It was very straightforward: turkey meat, a beaten egg, bread crumbs, grated onion, minced garlic and chopped parsley, S&P. Mooshed it all together. Here's the deal, the mixture was so wet feeling and so soft it was kind of tricky to make round little meatballs. When I gently slid these into the oil to brown, the little balls of meat flattened out and so they cooked up more like turkey triangles rather the balls. Any thoughts on how to improve my technique or the mixture itself? I thought of adding more bread crumbs but was worried it would make it too bready. By the way, they were delicious, I browned them and then baked them off in the oven for about 20 minutes and they were super moist. They just weren't spheres, they were sort of odd-shaped.

bjt

bjt wrote:Any thoughts on how to improve my technique or the mixture itself? I thought of adding more bread crumbs but was worried it would make it too bready. By the way, they were delicious, I browned them and then baked them off in the oven for about 20 minutes and they were super moist. They just weren't spheres, they were sort of odd-shaped.

bjt

How about less egg/more turkey?

You could also try squeezing the grated onion dry in cheesecloth or paper towel in order to remove excess liquid.

I think I caught that episode - doesn't Giada toss them in the fridge for a while to firm up after shaping? I'd try that if the above fixes don't work.

The issue with ground turkey is always moisture. Burgers, meatballs, always a lot of moisture. It's a fine line between adding the right amount of breadcrumbs to make up for it, and going overboard and having the meatballs/burgers seem like they have too much filler. I've never done this, but maybe placing the meat into cheesecloth and twisting it up to drain what you can out?

wow all these tips, thanks! the onions were really watery and I thought about squeezing them but frankly, I was just lazy in the moment. I bet that would have reduced some of the wetness for sure. I hadn't thought of putting in the fridge to set up a bit, that would probably help too. I don't think the egg was the problem though, it was actually a small-ish egg. all right, well, I will try this again in a few weeks and see how it goes . . . hopefully I will have meatballs and not odd triangular thingies.

bjt

Hi- I was just in the Whole Foods in downtown Evanston this morning, and ground turkey thigh is on sale for $2.49/lb. for three days 2/19-2/21. It is normally $4.99/lb. During their three day sales, which they have every weekend, they always have really good sales on a few types of meat.They also had wild caught previously frozen coho salmon on sale. It was at least $3 off per pound. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday -
It definitely helps me!
I'm off to check if my local store has this on sale as well. Ground turkey thigh is a staple in seebee jr's diet. That's a stock up price, imo!
Thanks!

NFriday -

Are the three day sales items announced / posted somewhere? I had no idea they even existed. I stocked up on the turkey yesterday, thanks again for posting that.

Hi- A lot of the Whole Foods stores have a page on facebook where you can find their sale fliers. You can go to the Whole Foods site, and click on facebook, and find the stores which have a page on facebook. Unfortunately not all the stores post their sale fliers. I am glad that people were able to take advantage of the ground turkey sale. The sale ends on 2/21. They had lots of it at the Evanston store yesterday. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday wrote:They also had wild caught previously frozen coho salmon on sale. It was at least $3 off per pound.

Which we had for dinner last night thanks to your post. Price was right, and the salmon enjoyable, but there were still pin bones, not a big deal, but surprising for WF.