Turkey roulade with soba and baby shiitakes

We got Rock Band today! Scott and I are in a fake Playstation 3 heavy metal band that we named MÖrning Wüd (okay, it was my witty idea to fuck it up with umlauts). We so totally melt faces that I barely mustered enough ambition to cook dinner. Seriously, I am cracking out so hard on pretending that I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band (gagh, terrible Moody Blues pun) that I could've just eaten top ramen for dinner. However! I did make food, and it was even premeditated and delicious.

First, though, I should mention that I picked up some lights from Ikea (those $5 rectangular, glass tabletop numbers) and built a ghetto-ass light box for photographing my food. I dunno, it seems like a good thing to be able to shoot meals besides breakfast without having orange-puke tones on everything.

Ooh, but even before that, I should brag about the lovely morning I had today. It was fucking redonkulous out today, like maybe 60 degrees, and sunny, so Scott and I took a nice stroll to Broder for some Swedish brekkie. I had the baked eggs "Jordbruken" (w/caramelized onions and bacon) and Scott had the pancakes with lingonberries and lemon curd. Yummeh. Good brekkie got me all revved-up to walk some more down to the fancy-pants grocery store. I picked up some incredible produce such as baby purple kohlrabi, purple cauliflower, golden beets, multi-colored radishes, some nice arugula, some red kale and a Buddha's hand citrus.

Ain't it pretty? I entered this into the Eat Fresh - Wonderful Winter blog event over at Meeta's joint.

And hey guess what, did you know that kohlrabi greens are edible, tasty even? I suspected as much, and it was confirmed with a quick Googling. Just perfect for the roulade I had been planning.

Alright alright, the recipe already.

Turkey Roulade with Soba and Baby Shiitakes
I made duxelles of baby shiitakes and minced kohlrabi greens, and it guess what? It works! The lemon zest makes the soba taste like it has been spiked with Ponzi sauce. Serves 2.

1 c kohlrabi greens, minced finely*
1 c shiitake mushrooms, minced finely*
1 tbsp minced shallot
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp sake
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 turkey "breast tender"
1 tbsp shiro miso
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 or 3 tbsp gari (pickled ginger like they give you for sushi)

*I used the food processor to get this done in 10 pulses.

4 oz. Soba
a bit of cooking oil
small handful shiitake, sliced - ends up being like 1 cup before cooking
1/3 c minced red onion
2 tbsp minced lemon zest (I used a "finger" from a Buddha's hand)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 c sake
2 tbsp mirin
1 tsp wasabi powder
1 tsp black sesame seeds
1/2 sheet of nori, sliced into slivers (I used scissors)

Heat oven to 375oF. In a medium saucepan, heat up the sesame oil over medium heat. Saute the minced shiitake, kohlrabi greens, shallot and ginger, stirring occasionally until slightly softened. Add the soy sauce, sake and mirin and cook for 5 minutes until the alcohol cooks out of the sake and the liquids reduce by about 50%. This is your duxelles.

Meanwhile, cut that nasty tendon out of the turkey and butterfly it to produce one fillet ~1/4" thick. Smear the fillet with miso, then sprinkle on the sesame seeds and top with sliced gari in a single layer as shown below.

When duxelles is ready, spread a 1/2"-thick layer on top of the gari, then roll up the whole thing into a ...uh...roll.
Now tie that shit up tight. Since I'm terrible at this step, I won't bore you with details, but look at the photo and pretend I'm skillfully tying this up using only one piece of string instead of five or six.

Brown this in a pan (you could use the duxelle pan) over medium-high heat until you get some Maillard on all sides, then pop it in the oven until a thermomter insterted into the middle (at an angle) reads ~150. This'll take about 15 minutes, give or take. When it's done, pull it out and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Whilst the roulade is roasting/resting, get some water boiling for the soba (I take it you know how to boil some noodles). Heat up a different medium-sized saute pan over medium heat. Get some more oil heated up and saute the onion, shiitakes and lemon zest until tender. Add the liquids and saute until reduced (like for the duxelles). Add the wasabi, stirring until dissolved.

Oh god I hope you were keeping tabs on the soba. Nothing worse than overcooked soba. When it's al dente, strain and rinse in cold water. Then stir-fry it for just a few seconds in the mushroom pan. Stir in the sesame seed. If I had some green onion, I'da totally sliced it razor-thin and stirred it in the pan with the soba.

Slice roulade into inch-thick medallions. Plate by nesting a nice wad of soba/mushroom, top with medallions and then sprinkle the sliced nori on the whole thing. We enjoyed this with some hard rocking, but a premium cold sake would be fine, too.