Turkey schnitzel with dukkah coating

Bland meat with punchy coating

Let’s be honest: turkey steaks are useful but awfully boring. A great source of lean protein but zero flavour.

Even if you’re not a fan of the Christmas version of the bird, you have to admit it is more interesting than a slice of breast fillet on special offer in the supermarket, in the middle of summer. A sensible choice healthwise, but you’re not going to be looking forward to that dinner with anticipation.

That is unless you turn it into an exciting schnitzel, coated in mildly exotic, easy to make and super flavoursome ingredient: dukkah.

How to make dukkah

Dukkah, or duqqa, is Middle Eastern and Egyptian mix of herbs, seeds and nuts. It’s potent and fragrant, made easily at home within minutes.

There are many variations in terms of ingredients: mine includes an array of fragrant seeds, crushed nuts and sesame.

The nuts and seeds should be toasted, though you might think it’s superfluous as they will be fried later in the coating. But toasting in a dry pan brings out the flavour of seeds and nuts, which frying in oil later would not achieve quite as well.

First the nuts, cashew and hazel in this case with a few almond flakes if you feel like it, then seeds, cumin, fennel and coriander plus sesame are toasted until fragrant. Everything, warm and aromatic, is then pounded in a pestle and mortar with salt flakes, oregano and cinnamon until crushed but not pulverised.

Can you blitz it in a food processor or a spice mill? Certainly, but I’d argue what you end up with will not be quite the right stuff, considering ‘dukkah’ means ‘to pound’. Joking aside, you can use a food processor but make sure your dukkah comes out coarse.

How to coat turkey schnitzels

Breading, or coating meat and fish in crumbs of various kinds is best done with a good setup.

Prepare your mise en place, in this case three shallow bowls. One with plain flour for dredging the meat, the second with egg beaten with a tablespoon of water which makes the egg cling better, and the third with the crumbs mix. For the dukkah coating mix it with some panko breadcrumbs in a 2:1 ratio, two tablespoons of panko to four of dukkah.

You can prepare the schnitzels in advance as they will benefit from chilling in the fridge for a while before frying, even up to overnight.

First dredge a steak in flour on both sides and pat off the excess.

Then dunk it in the egg wash, dragging it through on both sides twice so there is no dry flour visible. And then straight into the crumbs: wiggle the steak about on one side, then turn it over and do the same on the other side, making sure the cover is complete.

You can do it all with your hands though personally I prefer to use a fork to avoid messing up the coating with my fingers.

Arrange the schnitzels on a plate lined with paper towels and send to the fridge. You can of course fry them straight away if needs be.

Shallow frying is less messy

I know that the absolutely crispiest and crunchiest results would be achieved with deep frying, but honestly, who can be bothered with the mess, the smell, the oil disposal? Also, there are a lot of fans of air fryers but since I’m not one of them, I’ll propose old fashioned shallow frying.

The best approach is to heat up the frying pan until almost smoking, then turn it down to medium before you add the fat.

The combination of oil and butter gives the food the best flavour but butter burns something awful, hence best avoided. The golden middle is to use ghee, and it’s such a useful ingredients you’ll use up a jar in no time at all, even if you don’t cook curries or samosas.

The oil and ghee combo will also cook the coating lovely, golden and crunchy. The frying won’t take longer than five to six minutes on both sides as turkey cooks quickly.

Drain the schnitzels on paper towels and serve promptly.

More turkey steak recipes

Pan fried turkey breast steaks coated with crushed pink peppercorns, with an easy anchovy cream sauce. Pink peppercorns and smoked salt season the turkey steaks without the need for a fancy marinade.

Turkey breast fillet steaks with wild chanterelle mushroom creamy sauce, this is an easy-but-impressive dish. Cook these simple turkey escalopes with wild mushroom sauce for the next special occasion!

More breaded meat recipes

Crispy chicken Milanese with tarragon flavour, traditionally served with a rocket salad. Marinate the chicken in buttermilk before coating in breadcrumbs, which is the secret to extra crisp crust and succulent meat.

Buttermilk fried pork fillet cutlets seasoned with mustard and marjoram, pork tenderloin brined in buttermilk and shallow fried in cornmeal coating.

Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish of breaded fried pork cutlet; there is also chicken version called torikatsu. My tonkatsu recipe uses flattened pork medallion coated in panko breadcrumbs with tomato and Worcestershire sauce flavour.