Video | Salmagundi | Turkey Leg Confit | Roasted Asparagus Gribiche

This blog post idea came one night while my husband, Keith, and I were doing a crossword puzzle. One of the answers turned out to be salmagundi. We had no idea what it was or even that it was a food. But as good fortune would have it, we figured we could make it into a great keto meal, which we did. 

That got us wondering what other undiscovered delicacies were out there. This post shares three delicious and unusual keto foods that are as fun to eat as they are to say. 

3 Keto Foods I Bet You’re Not Eating [Full Meal 10 Carbs] (Video)

In this video, you’ll learn…

• Three unique keto recipes.
• The nutrition facts for each of the recipes and the full meal.
• How to prep the entire meal step-by-step.

3 Foods – 1 Perfect Keto Meal

Follow this blog post to learn how to make salmagundi, confit, and gribiche. I chose these foods because they are fun and delicious to eat together for a perfect keto meal or dinner party. 

If you eat a serving of each of the foods, you will consume just over 10 total carbs. That amount will keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low, promoting fat loss. 

Salmagundi

In researching salmagundi, the origin was hard to nail down. One source described it as a magnificent salad that became popular in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. Another simply referred to it as the precursor to today’s Cobb salad. Either way, it is a grand salad built with lots of savory ingredients to the point that it becomes a centerpiece for the dinner table. 

For it to be a true salmagundi, a few ingredients seemed to be non-negotiable. The primary one was a salty fish, namely pickled herring or anchovies, placed in the center of the serving plate and raised higher than the other ingredients. Beyond that, the secret seems to be the layering of flavors.

For my Keto Salmagundi, I included the sharp taste of pickled herring and gherkin pickles along with more bland ingredients, which were poached (boiled) chicken, cooked ham, and hard-boiled eggs that I separated into the chopped whites and chopped yolks because that seemed to be a thing with salmagundi recipes. 

I then filled the platter with some crisp, low-carb vegetables, including celery, cucumber, onion, and some greens. I used watercress and parsley. The salad was served with a simple oil and vinegar dressing and lemon slices.

Salmagundi Nutrition Facts

The recipe serves 4. Each serving contains 369 calories, 25.4g of fat, 8.4g of carbs, 0.8g of fiber, and 26g of protein.

Salmagundi could certainly be a meal in itself. But let’s make this a party with our featured dish, turkey leg confit. 

Turkey Leg Confit

There is a good chance you’ve heard the word “confit” before. But could you honestly say what it means and how to utilize it in the kitchen? Maybe you could. I had to read up on it. 

I love it because it feels fancy, but this cooking method is not hard to do. That makes it a perfect choice if you don’t think of yourself as a cook but want to impress your guests.

Confit is a French word that means “preserved.” According to Food 52, to confit, food must be cured in salt and slowly cooked in fats at low temperatures.

Gifted chefs would make duck confit in duck fat using a Dutch oven. I’m me, so I used turkey legs in olive oil in a slow cooker. 

The recipe is delicious and easy, but you want to marinate the turkey overnight in salt, so keep your timeframe in mind. 

I made a salt seasoning by combining coarse sea salt with pepper, a crushed bay leaf, and dried thyme leaves. I sprinkled the salt seasoning over four turkey legs and put them in the refrigerator. 

Twenty-four hours later, I rinsed them to remove excess salt and put them in a slow cooker. I then nearly covered them with olive oil and let them cook for at least 6 hours at the low setting. 

It took a couple of cups of oil to cover them. I read that you can reuse that oil for frying or seasoning future side dishes by straining it and storing it in the refrigerator for one month. I did this, and it has been fine. 

When the turkey legs were done, I placed them on a baking sheet in the oven under the broiler for a few minutes until the skin was crisp and golden. 

Turkey Leg Confit Nutrition Facts

What was the nutrition in this meal? It is always a bit of a head-scratcher when you have food immersed in oil. How much of that fat gets into the food? You could weigh the oil before and after cooking. However, that is still not precise because fat is rendered out of the meat. 

So, I went down a long, painful rabbit hole to figure out how oil is absorbed while cooking. I landed on an explanation from Research Gate. As it turns out, many factors affect the amount of oil absorbed. 

Oil Absorption Depends On:

• The time & temperature of cooking 
• The total surface area of the food 
• The composition of food 
• Variation in the smoking point of the fat

But, at the end of the day, “The uptake of absorbed oil in food can range from 4% to 14% of the total weight, depending upon the food and type of frying medium.” 

I decided to split the difference and say that 9% of the two cups of oil was absorbed, which is about 38 grams for the entire recipe. That may be a high estimate because turkey is not porous like processed foods, and some fat renders out of meats when cooked slowly. Regardless, this is a delicious keto entrée with less than one gram of carbs per turkey leg. 

The recipe serves 4. Each serving contains 291 calories, 19.1g of fat, 0.6g of carbs, 0.3g of fiber, and 27.8g of protein.

You can put stone-ground mustard on the table to use as a dipping sauce and serve it with our final keto recipe: roasted asparagus gribiche. 

Roasted Asparagus Gribiche

This recipe is based on Susan Pridmore’s recipe.

Gribiche is described as an egg sauce in French cuisine, and it pairs wonderfully with roasted asparagus. 

I made a few adjustments to Susan’s recipe. I used apple cider vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar, dried herbs instead of fresh, and just dumped all of the egg sauce ingredients in a bowl and mashed them to make my life easier.

Specifically, I put three diced hard-boiled eggs in a bowl and mashed them with a fork. I then stirred in minced garlic, vinegar, Dijon mustard, parsley, thyme, and capers. I made this recipe twice, once with capers and once without. Both versions are great. The last step is to whisk in olive oil. 

And a nice thing is that you can make this recipe ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator. Then, when you are ready to eat, roast the asparagus and pour the gribiche over the top – cold or slightly warm. 

Roasted Asparagus Gribiche Nutrition Facts

The recipe serves 4. Each serving contains 215 calories, 21.1g of fat, 1.3g of carbs, 0.3g of fiber, and 5g of protein.

Putting it All Together

Put all of these recipes together, and you have a hearty keto menu that serves four with only 10.4 total carbs per person.

If you serve this for a party, no one will go home hungry or in a carbohydrate coma. 

And even though this is an impressive spread, it was not hard to make. I put the salt seasoning on the turkey legs a day before making the meal. In the morning, I rinsed them and put them in the crock pot filled with oil. 

I then made the eggs gribiche and stuck it in the refrigerator until dinnertime. About an hour before dinner, I assembled the salmagundi, and right before dinner, I roasted the asparagus and then stuck the turkey legs under the broiler for a few minutes. 

Meal Prep Summary:

• 1. Season the turkey legs and refrigerate for 24 hours
• 2. Rinse the legs and put them in the crock pot
• 3. Make the eggs gribiche and refrigerate
• 4. Assemble the salmagundi
• 5. Roast the asparagus
• 6. Broil the turkey legs before serving

Thank you for reading and enjoy these wonderful recipes!

Check out my other keto and low-carb recipes.

About the Author

Becky Gillaspy, DC, is the author of The Intermittent Fasting Guide and Cookbook and Zero Sugar / One Month. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.