Turkey Tornado Tit over miso rice with parsnip and radish salad

2 lb turkey breast

1 bulb garlic

1/2 c olive oil

green curry paste

1 c brown rice, uncooked

2 T miso paste

8 oz mushrooms

1/2 T butter or margarine

1/2 red bell pepper

Worcestershire sauce

4-6 medium radishes

2 parsnips

1 T extra-virgin olive oil

1 t wine vinegar

pinch cumin

pinch kosher salt

black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F. Break apart the garlic bulb, bruise and peel the cloves. Slice the turkey breast into strips about an inch, inch-and-a-half thick and half the length of the breast. Rub them with the curry paste, no more than half a teaspoon or so per strip. You're not going for anything like full coverage, you just want to get enough in there for some good flavor without overwhelming it.

Oh. Yeah. Premade curry paste. Well, look, if you have a good source for kaffir lime leaves and zest, lemongrass, galangal (which I don't even know what the heck that is) and you want to spend an afternoon cooking up a batch, knock yourself out. But there's plenty of good stuff available in your local oriental grocery. It's cheap, it's yummy, and it'll keep forever in the fridge.

Anyway...get a cast-iron skillet very hot on the stovetop, and sear the turkey strips, a couple minutes on each side. Don't crowd the pan, do it in batches if you have to. When it's all seared take the skillet off the heat, put all the turkey back in, sprinkle on the garlic cloves and pour in 1/2 cup of olive oil. Cover the skillet (tinfoil is OK if it doesn't have a lid) and put it in the oven at 350F for 45 minutes. This is sort of a bastardized version of the procedure from 40 Cloves And A Chicken.

Put the brown rice in a pot with 2 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of miso paste. Bring to a boil, stir to dissolve the miso, then reduce heat and simmer until all the water is absorbed. If you start it right after the turkey goes in the oven they should be ready more or less together.

Melt the butter or margarine in a small saucepan. Quarter the mushrooms and let them cook, covered, over medium-low heat until they turn dark and give up their liquid. Slice half a bell pepper into strips. Toss the pepper with the mushrooms, season with a few dashes of Worcestershire, then cover and turn off the heat.

Slice the radishes and the parsnips into thin rounds, dress with wine vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil, a pinch of cumin and kosher salt, and grind on black pepper to taste. Oh yeah, I bought a can of those little Oriental baby corns to put in the salad but I forgot. D'oh. Bet they would've been really tasty.

The garlic cloves will have gone soft and taken on a delicious mild, nutty flavor, so plate the turkey on a bed of rice with some of the garlic and spoon on a bit of the drippings. You can have the mushroom/pepper medly as a side like I did, or put it on top of the rice if you're into vertical food.

Tip: If the parnsips aren't really really fresh, if they've started to get even the tiniest bit rubbery, a soak in an icewater bath will firm them up.