Turkey meat: benefits, calories, recipes

The most dietary of all types of meat is turkey meat. In America, this product is traditionally used for the main Christmas dish. Turkey has appeared on the shelves of our country relatively recently. Nevertheless, private farmers increasingly prefer this species of bird. Today in our article we will talk about what can be prepared from turkey meat (with recipes), about its harm and benefits, calories.

Composition and calorie content

Turkey meat contains a large amount of complete protein with a set of amino acids (AK), which are essential for humans. When you include turkey poultry in your diet (per serving), the body will replenish with half the daily norm of selenium, and in terms of iron content, the turkey surpasses even beef. In addition, in the meat in question there are such macro- and microelements:

• phosphorus;
• zinc;
• magnesium;
• potassium;
• copper.

In turkey there is a large amount of vitamins, so necessary for the body - these are B vitamins. Also, meat contains biotin and choline. Of particular note is the presence in it of fatty unsaturated acids, which have very useful properties. For a proper balanced human nutrition, the ratio between omega-6 and 3 is especially important. All these indicators, as well as the calorie content of turkey meat, can be found in the table. Data are presented per serving or 110 grams.

A table of calories and fat content in turkey meat is presented below.

What is useful turkey meat

Turkey meat is assimilated by a person by 95%, this figure is even higher than that of dietary chicken meat. Turkey meat contains very little cholesterol, which means that the use of such a product will not have a harmful effect on people suffering from atherosclerosis and suffering from obesity. The meat contains potassium and a large amount of unsaturated fats, which will benefit the vessels and heart. Its phosphorus content and low fat content make it possible to absorb calcium most fully. Therefore, its use will be very useful for the prevention of joint diseases and osteoporosis.

By the way, turkey meat is almost twice as high as beef in iron content, which makes the product very useful for people with low hemoglobin in the blood. Turkey contains a large amount of another element that is very important for the body - zinc. It strengthens the immune system, as well as masculine strength. According to available data, the systematic use of the product prevents the development of malignant tumors in the human body.

Benefit and harm

Turkey meat is superior to beef in sodium. Most often, it gives the body only benefits: it normalizes all metabolic processes in our body and, surprisingly, replenishes the blood plasma. Due to the presence of sodium in the meat during cooking, the dish can not be salted, which, of course, will be beneficial, especially for people with hypertension. If this rule is not observed, the benefit can turn into harm, because if you salt the turkey, you get an excess of sodium.

Harm instead of the benefits of eating turkey meat can be people suffering from gout and kidney disease. This is due to the high content of protein in meat.

Important information

As it turned out, the benefits of eating this meat are much greater than harm. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you include this product in your diet. It is especially useful for the following categories of citizens:

1. Pregnant and lactating women, children of any age (due to the content of folic acid and hypoallergenicity).
2. Persons suffering from insomnia, prone to stress and depression (possesses sleeping pills and contains derivatives for the production of serotonin - the hormone of happiness).
3. The product is necessary in the presence of great physical exertion, as well as for people in the postoperative period or for diseases (high protein content).

Turkey in a children's diet

The useful properties of turkey are also spoken by Russian pediatricians. Soft turkey meat is most suitable for feeding children from six months. It is hypoallergenic, well absorbed by the baby’s body, delivers large doses of protein into it, which are necessary for the most complete growth of teeth and musculoskeletal system. Turkey puree is a product worthy of special attention if the baby is growing poorly or has frequent mood swings.

Turkey: Tips for Choosing

When buying turkey poultry, you should specify in what form you want to purchase it: fresh, chilled or frozen. To date, a huge selection of products is presented:

• whole carcass;
• carcass cut into pieces;
• loin portion;
• minced turkey;
• separate parts in the substrate - thighs, breast, wings, drumstick, offal.

When buying, you should pay attention to the appearance of the product, as for the carcass, it should be well-fed, rather fleshy, and the breast and legs thick. As for the skin, it should be light, with a beautiful yellow tint, no spots and moist. You can check the freshness of the product as follows: press the carcass with your finger, if the dent straightens immediately, then the turkey meat is fresh, and if not, it is better to refuse the purchase.

Storage

Turkey meat should be stored in a refrigerator in a plastic bag only if you are going to cook immediately. You can store no more than a day. When defrosting meat, know that you need to cook it immediately, because microorganisms begin to multiply very quickly in it, which, when re-frozen, do not disappear, but remain in the product.

Cooking

There are a lot of culinary recipes with turkey, it can be boiled, baked, fried, smoked, stewed. Tasty cutlets, pastes, sausages and canned food are obtained from it.

It takes quite a lot of time to prepare dishes from this product. For example, for the complete readiness of baked turkey meat in the oven (whole carcass), it will take about 3 hours. Such a product is boiled from half an hour to an hour and a half. You can find out the readiness of a roasted turkey by piercing it, if the juice is transparent, then the dish is ready.

The cooking time table is presented below.

Turkey roll with dried tomatoes

We offer to prepare a tasty and interesting dish of turkey meat on the festive table. The meat of this bird is perfectly absorbed by the body, contains a minimum amount of cholesterol, it has many useful vitamins. To work, we need the following components:

• turkey fillet - 4 kg;
• sun-dried tomatoes - 2 tbsp .;
• next oil - 400 g;
• bacon - 350 g;
• thyme - a pinch;
• basil - to taste;
• olive oil. - 6 tbsp. l

Sun-dried tomatoes are cut not too finely arbitrary shape. Divide the turkey fillet into portions, beat, slightly salt and pepper. For each beaten piece, the filling is laid in layers in the following sequence: first bacon, then tomatoes, followed by thyme, basil and last butter. Everything is sprayed with olive oil, twisted into a roll, tied with a strong thread. Bake rolls 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees.

Turkey chop

Excellent taste have turkey chops , fried in a pan. All cooks, even beginners, want to cook juicy turkey meat, for this it is properly coated with sour cream. Ingredients:

• 500 g of turkey;
• 30 g of cheese (preferably solid);
• a pair of eggs;
• spice;
• breading flour;
• oil under. for frying.

Turkey fillet cut into slices of 7-8 mm. The meat is beaten with a kitchen hammer, seasoned with spices. The batter is made from eggs and grated cheese. First, the chops are rolled in a bowl with flour, then released into an egg-cheese batter and laid in a preheated pan. Pieces are fried alternately on both sides. The turkey meat cooked according to this recipe is very tender and tasty, and the dish is simple and quick to prepare.

Roasted turkey in foil

The turkey meat baked in foil is well baked and as a result it turns out juicy and aromatic. It is very important to ensure that during cooking the meat does not cross and become too dry. The following products will be required for baking:

• 700 g turkey fillet (you can take a whole bird);
• 3 tsp various spices;
• 5 tablespoons (tbsp.) Soy sauce;
• salt to taste.

Wash the turkey meat with running cold water and pat it with a paper towel or napkin. In order for the fillet to be evenly soaked with spices, using a sharp knife we ​​make deep cuts in the meat. Seasonings and, if desired, various herbs should be chosen to your taste. We put the fillet in the container, add our spices to it and fill it with soy sauce, mix well. If you like garlic, you can put it in the cuts made. After this, the product is carefully wrapped in foil, good tightness of the package is necessary so that the juice does not run out.

After that, we remove the meat in the package in the refrigerator for three hours for marinating. After this period of time, we place the meat in a frying cabinet with a temperature of up to 220 degrees. It should be baked for fifty minutes. If you want the product to have a golden crust, we unfold the foil shortly before the end of baking. We take out the finished dish and cut into portions.