Lessons in Leftovers: Turkey Rillettes

Possibly the biggest perk (slash trade secret) of working for a food publishing company is the take home fridge. It sits in a room behind the kitchen, and daily fills up with the remains of recipe testing. Sometimes I find dozens of deli containers of chocolate pudding, or tomato sauce, or even tater tots. Other times, I scout fruits and vegetables too bruised and battered for a photo shoot, or rare pantry items no longer useful in the kitchen. Today was a pretty good day: I brought home two leeks, a small jar of olives (only a few missing), half a block of semisweet baking chocolate, half a bag of semolina flour, and a small container of dried figs.

Usually I’ll get really excited about my finds when I grab them, but when I get home and empty my grocery bag on the table, I sigh and scratch my head.

Not wanting to waste a bit of my free groceries, I’ve tried to get as creative as possible using up my leftovers. Some days it is obvious, like the day I snagged a raw rabbit, already broken down into easily braised pieces. Into the Dutch oven it went with a few vegetables, wine, and stock. Served with bread, it made my dinner for at least a couple days.

Other days, like last week, when I brought home a few bags of whole grain flour and a generous piece (cough half a cake cough) of chocolate-almond torte, I end up stashing my loot in the freezer until some kind of inspiration/chocolate craving strikes.

I’ve gathered over half a dozen flours, beans, grains, and parmesan rinds this way, slowly using it all up over months at a time, and greatly reducing the last minute trips to the grocery store. It’s awesome.

But I’m not here to brag about my job or anything. I’m here to talk about potted meat.

This past weekend, I attended a canning party/potluck with some good folks from food52. I was planning on putting together a cheese and homemade crackers spread, but once I got down to the cracker-making part late last week, I realized the platter needed a little oomph. A little meat oomph, if you will.

As luck would have it, that day I had snagged a generous box of braised turkey (thinking I would feed it to Matt over the weekend). Along with the (fantastic) homemade pancetta I already stashed in the fridge, I figured I could whip up some kind of quick rillettes. Rillettes are a French meat preparation (many times with pork or duck, but, use what you got!) consisting of slowly cooked (or confited) and shredded meat, smashed up with stock and fat, pressed into a small container, and covered with more fat. (This copious amount of fat helps to preserve the meat (and to keep it moist and delicious)). The rillettes are chilled at least overnight to flavor and set the spread, and then served at room temperature over bread or crackers.

For my turkey version, I removed the leg and thigh meat from the bone, shredding the meat, and simmering the bones (along with a carrot and half an onion) in a pot of well-salted water for a quick broth. I diced up the pancetta and rendered the fat in a generous glug of olive oil to use instead of turkey fat (most had already been rendered and removed during the braising process). Some of the stock and fat joined the turkey meat in my standing mixer, where it all got beaten and whipped into a frenzy/spreadable paste. My mixture fit perfectly into three 1-cup ramekins, where it got coated in a sizeable layer of pancetta-olive oil fat, wrapped in plastic, and stuck in the fridge overnight.

The final dish, while certainly not the product of painstaking technique, was still unctuous, gamy, and perfect for my cheese plate. Not bad for a box of leftovers.

Leftover Turkey Rillettes

Makes about 3 cups

1 bone-in braised or roasted turkey leg, skin removed*

1 bone-in braised or roasted turkey thigh, skin removed*

1/2 onion, peeled

1 carrot, peeled and chopped into 3-inch pieces

Water

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for finishing

3 ounces pancetta or thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1. Remove turkey meat from bones, and set meat aside. Place bones, onion, and carrot in large saucepan. Cover with water, and season with a generous pinch of salt. Simmer over medium-low heat until water takes on flavor of bones and vegetables, about 1 hour. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into 8-cup liquid measuring cup.

2. Meanwhile, heat pancetta and olive oil in small saucepan over medium heat until pancetta begins to sizzle. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook until all of the fat has rendered out of pancetta and remaining meat is crisp. Strain through fine mesh strainer into bowl.

3. Shred turkey meat into bite size pieces, and transfer to bowl of standing mixer fit with paddle attachment. Beat turkey on medium speed until broken down. Drizzle in about 1 cup broth and 1/4 cup fat, and continue to beat until moistened. Add more broth and fat until turkey reaches a moist and spreadable consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Transfer turkey mixture into 1 cup ramekins, packing tightly to remove air bubbles. Refrigerate, uncovered, until chilled. Drizzle remaining fat over top of chilled turkey mixture so that about 1/8-inch fat covers the surface. If necessary, add extra olive oil to cover. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Serve at room temperature with crusty bread, homemade crackers, good cheese, and tart pickles.

*You could totally substitute chicken here. 4 braised or roasted thighs should do it. (I'd shy away from chicken drumsticks, since they contain so much cartilage.)

I am still stuffed

We learned some important lessons this Thanksgiving.

Number one: French press coffee makers do indeed whip heavy cream into glorious submission:


Number two: Homemade appetizers still don't get eaten unless they are a) decor for bloody marys (celery, cheese, olive, sausage, surprisingly appropriate) or b) macarons (espresso and salted caramel, explosively delicious):


Number three: Turkeys cooked in a roasting rack do sometimes look like torpedos:


Number four: Eight Thanksgiving servings are always smaller than eight regular servings. We would all have to eat like this:


(and then some) to eat all of this:



(I still don't know where Ted's sausage-walnut-sage stuffing went. It was delicious, I promise).

Happy 4th / Time for Lunch

Oh, Independence Day. The one day a year where I willingly don the flags colors, on my clothing, and in my food. It doesn’t seem like a statement of politics today, but rather an embrace of another over-the-top holiday consisting mainly of food, drinks, and very loud explosions. Today, though I’d like to ask you, readers, to think about another way in which you can celebrate the holiday with an act perhaps more patriotic than wearing red, white, and blue.

I’d like to invite you all to take a look at the Time for Lunch website. Time for Lunch is a campaign, organized primarily through Slow Food USA, to bring the upcoming review of the Child Nutrition Act to the country’s (and Congress’s) attention. The Child Nutrition Act is a bill that governs how the National School Lunch Program feeds kids in the nation’s public schools. Most importantly, the Child Nutrition Act sets a limit on the amount of money that a school can be reimbursed for the cost of their cafeteria’s food. Right now schools receive only about one dollar (one dollar!) per child per meal. No wonder my memories of school lunch consist of powdered mashed “potatoes,” square rubbery “pizza,” and canned “peaches” (and these foods were served on the best days; I was lucky enough to have a choice to eat school lunch or bring my own. Many children today do not have that privilege). The Child Nutrition Act will come under review this September, and Time for Lunch is asking Congress to consider doubling the amount of reimbursement – from one dollar to two.

In addition, Time for Lunch is advocating for stronger control of the types of additional foods sold in school, like the French fries, cookies, and chicken wings from the “a la carte” line in the cafeteria, as well as items sold in vending machines scattered around many schools’ premises. The presence of these types of food encourage poor eating choices among students – I remember many of my high school friends eating French fries and a cookie for lunch every single day of the week. Why would they want to suffer the inevitable stomach ache and sugar crash from such a diet? Because their parents weren’t there to tell them otherwise.

Finally, Time for Lunch is asking for the continued and increased support of Farm to School programs. In the last year, my high school has added a kitchen garden to its premises (the result of a student-organized senior project) and they will hopefully begin eating from it in the fall. More programs like this are possible, but there needs to be more funding. Apparently, the last time the Child Nutrition Act was reviewed (in 2004), a section was added to provide an unspecified amount of money to schools to hold lessons in local eating and healthy eating, but Congress never appropriated the funds. Time for Lunch is asking Congress to guarantee mandatory funding for programs like the one started at my school.

I know that this might seem like a lot of political advertisement, but I really believe that support of groups like this can do a great deal to improve not only childhood nutrition in this country, but also over-all public school education standards. It is common sense that students will pay attention and learn better when they have a full stomach and proper nutrition. A meal of powdered mashed potatoes or gummy pizza simply does not provide the brain food necessary to be a successful student. It is also common sense that such proper nutrition cannot be provided on a dollar a day.

Take a few minutes today and show your support. Time for Lunch is putting together a petition to show public support for the review of the Child Nutrition Act; all you have to do is sign it. It only takes a minute. You can also check out their Eat-In potluck program that will commence on Labor Day. Find one in your area and get involved. It will be fun, helpful, and, most importantly on a day like today, patriotic.

Epic Eating

I did it. Graduated. An overwhelming experience in itself, the ceremony ended up taking a backseat to all of the other parties and planning and family interacting over the weekend. Of course, we also ate. A lot. It was epic.

I’m still pretty full from all of it, in fact, and have retreated to light salad territory probably for the rest of the week (good thing the Moreland farmer’s market is today!). For the next couple days, I’ll recount the ups and downs of the weekend – you won’t want to read it all in one post anyway.