Roasted Turkey Modern, Served 1+8+11 Ways (Part II)

In Part I, I described how I made a whole turkey in 1+8 ways: 1 base flavor through the brine, and 8 condiments.

Now in part II, I share how I created 11 dishes using the turkey leftover-- skin, meat & condiments, bones and brine. Refer to the slideshow for pictures.


Leftover Turkey Skin:
1. Crisp skin salad with arugala, Gala apple and Granny Smith apple. Drizzled with a simple dressing (olive oil, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, lemon juice).

2. Skin roll: strips of turkey meat, cucumber, Granny Smith apple and chive wrapped in skin. Paired with 5 different spices/dressings: Japanese ponzu sauce with ginger, Japanese plum salt with wasabi powder, Mexican chiptole powder, Thai curry powder, Italian aged (10-year) balsamic vinegar.

Skin preparation:
Save some patches of the skin and store in the fridge. Next day, lay it flat in single layer and reheat in 350F oven. After 3 minutes, take it out to scrap off excess fat underneath. About 6 minutes in total heating time for skin used in the roll (soft enough to wrap), about 10 minutes total for the skin used in salad (for crunch and crispness). Pat with paper towel before mixing with other ingredients to absorb excess fat.

Leftover Turkey Meat:
3. Ravioli with meat, chiptole apple chutney and thyme.
The chutney: sautée minced shallot and minced gala apple with a little butter, add chiptole pepper to your liking.

Then just mix the chutney, thyme with minced leftover meat for the ravioli filling.

We often make ravioli from scratch. (Mario Batali’s Babbo Restaurant almost single handedly made me appreciate the difference between freshly made and dry pasta, and motivated me to make fresh pasta at home.) With the KitchenAid mixer, it’s very simple and fast to make the dough and press into pasta sheets.

Dough: about 1 1/4 cup flour+2 eggs+1/4 tsp olive oil (4 servings)

Roll the sheets to the thinness of setting 5 on pasta attachment. Then cut into 4 inch squares, place filling in the middle, fold and press into triangles. Boil in salted and boiling water for 2-3 minutes for al dente texture.

The three sandwiches pretty much used the leftover meat and condiments as is, except adding spiced roasted butternut squash and roasted Brussel sprouts. Sandwich filling combinations:
4. meat with orange ginger sage sauce, spiced butternut squash & wasabi almonds
5. meat with sesame Sichuan pepper, spiced butternut squash & kaffir lime cashew
6. meat with alder smoked salt, roasted Brussel sprouts, cranberry ginger apple sauce & maple and cayenne-glazed pecan

Spiced roasted butternut squash: cut squash into big pieces, roast @ 325F for about 60minutes or until soft, mash with a fork, mix at the following proportion:
1 pound squash
1/8 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Roasted Brussel sprouts: vertically halve the sprouts, boil in salted boiling water for 1 minute, rinse in cold water & drain, then roast @ 350F until soft. This process retains the bright green color. This process retains the bright green color.

Stock Made from Leftover Turkey Bones:
7. Spicy smoked turkey soup with wild rice
This dish was inspired by a smoked chicken soup with mushroom & wild rice at Pine Creek Cookhouse outside Aspen, CO. On a ski trip there, we rented a car for one day just to have dinner at this restaurant. Totally worthy of the hassle. It was a five course dinner and everything was delicious. But the most strikingly memorable turned out to be the soup, its smokiness and spicy kick. I have bought smoked chicken to recreate this dish at home. To create smoky flavor for the leftover turkey, I mixed alder smoked salt into the meat and stored it in fridge overnight. For spicy kick, I used cayenne pepper.

8. Udon noodle soup with stock, meat, king oyster mushroom, and Shungiku (Shungiku: an Asian chrysanthemum-family vegetable, has pleasant chrysanthemum
flavors).

Leftover Turkey Brine:
Store & Re-use the brine: Boil after each use, skim off the scum, let it cool, then freeze.

This brine is on the sweet side, works perfectly for turkey. But for other meats, suggest add more kosher salt. Two ways to do it: 1) add kosher salt into the brine leftover, and marinate meats in the more salted brine; or 2) marinate meat in the brine as is for a few hours, then take meat out, rub a thin layer of kosher salt (plus additional herbs/spices), dry marinate for another few hours.

9. Roasted duck using the leftover brine w/ added thyme.
The duck was also brined for one day, drained the following day and then roasted.

10. Cedar planked lamb chop using the leftover brine w/ added chipotle.
11. Cedar planked shrimp using the leftover brine w/ added Indian spicy masala.
For planking, suggest pre-soak the plank in water overnight. Put pre-soaked plank in roasting pan, add some water, then place meat on plank (water not to submerge the plank with meat on). Place the pan/tray in 350F oven & roast. (For lamb, sear sides on pan until browned before roasting.)