I was in the middle of enjoying some of New England's tasty brews with John when the topic turned from the beer to food. One of my favorite recipes for ground turkey includes a chiplotle rub. John finds ground turkey to be a tasteless meat that does not bring much to the table. I could not disagree more.
Sometimes when you are cooking you are looking for a delivery system for flavor. As children we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread. Wonder bread or some commercial version of white bread was a staple in our homes growing up. It was a magnificent delivery module for the different flavors we craved. Peanut butter and Jelly, Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches, BUTTER!, or a host of other concoctions.
Ground turkey can be that delivery system for a host of flavors. The beginning of this discovery process was using a Chipotle Rub I made for a BBQ competion I entered. I thought the flavor was strong enough to help out the gound turkey. It began as a burger. The chipotle rub added enough sweet and savory flavor with that nice spicey hot kick that I had to try it out as a meatloaf.
I call this Chipotle Turkey Loaf. The results were very good. The only thing I noticed was the glaze did not caramelize. I thought of a couple of ways to get the desired results.
Remember that torch you bought to make Creme Brulee? You can use that to create the carmelization needed. Your plumber's tourch or heat gun are excellent alternative ways to create this. The toaster oven (I used this method) is an easy way accomplish the desired results. Or, you can just eat it like it is!