Turkey, apricot and hazelnut pilaff

This is adapted from an ancient Good Housekeeping recipe given to me by my friend Wendy. The orginal uses leftover turkey but I usually roast a small chicken and wrestle the meat from the carcass when it's cold. We have this every Easter, with a plate of cold cooked ham, my mum's macaroni cheese, Greek salad and our friend Jacqui's cheese pie.

When Wendy cooked this for us years ago, she did this mental salad as a starter: stilton, avocado, proscuttio, mango and coriander leaves dressed with passionfruit pulp. Works really well with the apricots in the pilaf. She also does a mean meatball sub.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (or hazelnut)
• 8 baby onions, peeled and halved
• 3 cloves garlic crushed 
• 1 tablespoon medium curry powder
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 2 sticks of celery, finely sliced
• 125g semi-dried apricots, cut into halves
• 225g brown rice
• 750ml chicken stock
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
•  350g cooked turkey meat, shredded, or the meat from a small whole chicken
• 125g trimmed small French green beans
• 50g toasted peeled hazelnuts (roast then roll in a towel and the skins will come off)
• flat leaf parsley to serve

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Method

Heat the oil in a large pan and stir-fry the onions, celery, garlic, curry powder, ground coriander and mixed spice for 5-10 minutes, until onions are brown and softened. Add the apricots, rice and chicken stock. Bring to the boil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and simmer, covered for about 20 minutes - stirring often. Check whether the rice is tender and if all the stock has been absorbed. Add a little extra stock or water until the rice is cooked.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and cook for a further 10 mins. Check the seasoning, and garnish with flat leaf parsley.