Some of my favourite meals are those created from leftovers. It being Thanksgiving, leftovers from the turkey I’ll roast and enjoy today will star in meals I make in the coming days.
There are many tasty ways to use leftover turkey, including Mexican-style dishes, such as tinga, the name for a saucy dish made with shredded meat.
Turkey tinga, of course, is made with shredded, cooked turkey meat. My version of the sauce for the tinga simmers together a seasoned mix of onions, tomatoes and salsa verde. Salsa verde, green salsa in English, is sold in jars in the Mexican foods aisle of most grocery stores. The sauce for the tinga also has some stock in it, which could be turkey stock, if you plan on making some with the leftover turkey carcass you’ll have after Thanksgiving dinner.
Once the tinga sauce is made, you add and simmer your shredded turkey meat in it, until it’s piping hot and richly flavoured by it.
You could serve the turkey tinga on tostadas, crisp, pan-fried corn tortillas, or do what I did and use it as a filling for tacos, deliciously filled with such things as ripe avocado, shredded lettuce, cilantro, tangy cheese, sliced jalapeño peppers and sour cream. To make a very filling meal, you could serve the turkey tinga tacos with hot refried beans and Mexican-style rice.
Note: When handling turkey leftovers, to be the most food safe, it’s best to remove any leftover turkey meat from the carcass as soon after your Thanksgiving meal as you can and get it refrigerated. The same holds true for any leftover sliced meat you cut but didn’t eat during the meal. According to several sources, that leftover turkey meat can be wrapped and refrigerated for up to three to four days. It can also be frozen for three to four months.
Turkey Tinga Tacos
Turkey tinga, a saucy mixture rich with shreds of leftover roast turkey meat, stars in these flavourful tacos also filled with such things as cheese, avocado, sour cream and cilantro.
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: About 25 minutes
Makes: four (three tacos each) servings
12 hard taco shells, or 12 (six-inch round) soft corn tortillas, warmed (see Note 1)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cup diced ripe red tomatoes (see Note 2)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 cup salsa verde (see Note 3)
1/2 cup turkey or chicken stock
1/2 tsp granulated sugar or honey
2 1/2 cups cooked, cooled and coarsely shredded roast turkey meat
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• grated Monterey Jack, havarti or aged cheddar cheese, to taste
1 1/2 cups shredded head, romaine or leaf lettuce, or to taste
1 ripe medium avocado, quartered lengthwise, pitted, peeled and cut into small cubes
1 to 2 jalapeño peppers, very thinly sliced, widthwise
• sour cream to taste
• small cilantro sprigs, to taste
• hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco, to taste
Place the oil in a pot set over medium, medium-high heat (my pot was eight inches wide). Add the onion and cook until tender, about four minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, cumin and oregano and cook and stir two minutes more.
Mix in the salsa verde, stock and sugar (or honey). Bring to a gentle simmer, lowering the heat as needed to maintain that simmer, and cook five minutes. Add the turkey to the pot, return to a simmer and cook five minutes more, or until a thickened sauce forms around the turkey. Taste and season this turkey tinga with salt and pepper, as needed. Cover the turkey tinga and reserve on low heat.
To serve, place the cheese, lettuce, avocado, jalapeños, sour cream and cilantro in individual small bowls. Spoon the turkey tinga into a heatproof serving dish. Set everything, including the taco shells (or corn tortillas) and hot pepper sauce, on the dinner table. Let diners fill their tacos, to taste, with the turkey tinga and other ingredients.
Note 1: You can warm hard taco shells by setting them on a baking sheet and popping them into a 300 F oven five minutes or so. You can warm the soft corn tortillas by wrapping them in foil, in two packages, each with six tortillas stacked in them, in a 300 F oven 10 minutes or so.
Note 2: Two, ripe, medium on-the-vine tomatoes should yield the diced amount needed here. Diced in this recipe means to cut into small, 1/4- to 1/2-inch cubes.
Note 3: Salsa verde, also called green salsa, is sold in the Mexican foods aisle of most grocery stores. I used Herdez brand.
Eric Akis is the author of eight cookbooks. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
