My 10year old daughter took her 1st turkey yesterday, she was a little sad, alot happy... Anyway to help make her feel better, I said we would use as much of the bird as possible. Usually, I just breast them out. grill or fry strips, but thought we'd give this a try.
Long story short, skin out the bird, cut off as much meat as you want. I even saved the meat off the first wing bone ( quite a bit of meat there) and about half way down the drumstick, leaving behind the tough tendony shank.. Grind it all trying to mix white and dark meat equally. Then I took about 6 strips of bacon and diced it up best I could and mixed it in with the meat by hand, run it through the grinder again. Make your patties or use how ever you want.
Little tip, my buddy who owns a small bar and grills says the usda (maybe it's the kda?) insists you cook turkey burgers from a frozen state, without thawing. So all the extra, I made patties and put between layers of wax paper then froze. Hopefully the paper will peel off later and I can just throw the frozen patties in the skillet or grill. We have enough for three more meals.
So back to last nights dinner, I took and fried up the rest of the pac of bacon, then fried up the burgers in the grease. Melted some pepper jack cheese on top and added some creole mayo.. Mmmm Mmmm good. A few fresh jalapeno slices would of been nice.
FYI , Fiesta Brand fajita seasoning is gods gift to us humans. That stuff is probably good on vanilla ice cream! I made a couple dozen 1/2 pork 1/2 venison brats with it this year.... A+ .....Getting ready to make a bunch of hunter sticks, I think I'll make an extra 5lbs or so just using that for seasoning.
For a healthier version, I hear you can substitute apples for the bacon. I may try that with the next bird, regular season opens tomorrow.
Sorry, no photos, but think you'll like it.