Adding a Pinoy touch to roast turkey
November 16, 2007 |
A reader, Carla, e-mailed me asking if I wasn’t going to cook roast turkey for Thanksgiving. Carla is a second generation Filipino in the U.S. and has been to the Philippines twice but only to visit.
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the Philippines. Turkey is not even all that popular here. In fact, there seems to be a mixed attitude towards turkey, at least where I live. In the suburb, many locals raise turkeys in their backyards but they don’t treat the birds as anything really special. They’re just birds for food, much like the ducks and the chickens raised with them. Truth be told, roast whole pig (lechon) is the prized special occasion food in the Philippines, not turkey. Even for very special occasions like Christmas and fiestas, the humble folk won’t look twice at the turkeys in their backyards with the thought of turning them into a centerpiece in a revered feast. Fat chance, really. If there’s no pig to slaughter, they’d rather turn the chickens into culinary delights through that kind of peasant cooking that is both hearty and nostalgic.
But among the more Westernized urbanites, turkey evokes cosmopolitan images. Over the last few years, more and more restaurants that cater to the upper classes started offering turkey dinners during the Thanksgiving season and the rich have taken to the imported tradition with gusto. The funny thing is that many are not even aware why there’s a Thanksgiving Day in that part of the world where the tradition originates from.
I’ve cooked turkey a couple of times. The first time, I couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Turkey meat is dry for the most part, unlike duck meat which is really my bird of choice. Then, I realized that the significance of the turkey to Westerners is not so much about the culinary value of the bird but, rather, because of its association with their own history.
Filipinos in North America are part of the world population that celebrates Thanksgiving Day. I understand that Thanksgiving Day has become a part of their own family traditions and I really wondered why Carla would come to me for a Thanksgiving turkey recipe instead of going for traditional American roast turkey recipes which are so easy to find in cookbooks and the internet.
I figured it was a halfway thing. Part of her is American yet she remains deeply attached to her Filipino roots. Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I’m not making roast turkey anytime soon. The good news is that I have a number of turkey recipes in the archive, including one for rice-stuffed roast turkey (below, left) which I served at a dinner party for my husband’s birthday last year.
The Butterball turkey was thawed in brine then roasted uncovered in the convection oven. The stuffing is a mixture of cold cooked rice, chopped pimientoes, chopped carrots,toasted onion bits, chopped wansuy (cilantro) and sesame seed oil. Click here for the rice-stuffed roast turkey recipe. The recipe includes detailed instructions on how to make a very tasty gravy using the turkey’s neck, giblets and liver.
If you happen to have leftovers, you can make them into lumpiang pabo (turkey spring rolls) or turkey empanadas (middle and right photos above). I made the lumpia with scrap turkey meat — those tasty, tasty bits that remained attached to the carcass because they escaped the carving knife — but the empanadas, I made with turkey choice cuts about a month after I cooked the rice-stuffed roast turkey.
The lumpia was cooked much like the way lumpiang shanghai is cooked. The turkey meat was mixed with chopped vegetables, wrapped then deep fried. I even served them with the traditional sweet and sour dipping sauce. You can read the detailed recipe in the lumpiang pabo (turkey spring rolls) entry.
What about the empanadas? The filling for the empanadas was a mixture of boiled turkey thighs, potatoes, finely minced garlic, chopped onion, bell pepper raising soaked in water until plump, chopped parsley, butter and cream, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I’m not an accomplished baker — I’m still learning — so you’re always free to make the empanada crust using your own recipe. If you’d like to see how I made my turkey empanadas, click here. The turkey empanada entry comes with step-by-step instructions and photos.
End of turkey recipes? Well, not quite. While I’m at it, let me be thorough.
Let’s say that Carla roasted a whole turkey but not everyone made it to Thanksgiving dinner. Ergo, there are more leftovers than what a bunch of turkey lumpia requires. What else to do with them? How about Oriental style turkey fried rice, turkey and potato salad and turkey paksiw?
The fried rice and the paksiw were made from leftovers from my first attempt at roasting turkey a couple of years ago. It was a great roast turkey alright but I over-estimated my family’s appetite. As good as they roast turkey was, a 10-pound bird was still too much for a family of four. The vegetables that went into the fried rice were corn, carrots and sweet peas. The paksiw was cooked just like paksiw na lechon except that I deboned the turkey for convenience at the dinner table.
So, if you feel like immersing yourself in all turkey reading for the next half hour or so, just click the links within the entry to view the turkey recipes in the archives.
Happy Thanksgiving Day to all the Filipinos (and non-Filipinos) in North America.
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3 Responses to “Adding a Pinoy touch to roast turkey”
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Wow, that turkey lumpia sounds like a delicious idea. I do always have left over turkey, especially the bony part, and my married childen won’t take them, but would wait till I come up with another dish for it, then, they would come over my house again and …eat. Ever yer, my sister always make soup out of her own left-over (we cook separately), this time, I’ll show off with my lumpia.. ahahha. By the way, I am glad turkey is cheap here, in fact stores compete on the cheapest per lb. every Thankgiving. And most companies gives it as a gift to each employee.
your pinoy style turkey sounds great. i would like to try that this coming thanksgiving. however, would like to know how much rock salt should i mix with the 5 liters water to make the brine. am scared to make it too salty..pls reply asap. thanks
Ebba, yeah, be unique. Lumpia instead of soup. The fried rice was great too.
Carla, actually, as with any brine, you just stop adding salt when you reach the saturation point. You can always use less. If you don’t want the turkey to absorb all of it, you NOT peel off the wrapping but simply cut small holes in it.