Updated Sunday, November 29: I'm revising and republishing my post from Friday because I want to share another recipe that can be made with leftover turkey before we leave Thanksgiving behind. That recipe would be Jamie Oliver's turkey Tetrazzini. It's actually called spaghetti Tetrazzini in his book
Jamie's Italy, but you and I, Americans that we are, will call it turkey (or chicken) Tetrazzini. Wink wink.

I'd seen Alanna Kellogg's turkey Tetrazzini recipe on Friday (the recipe I link to at the bottom of this post), and it reminded me that I'd wanted to make the version in my Jamie Oliver book for a couple of years. If you saw the photo of the dish in
Jamie's Italy, you'd know why I'd been longing to try it; the photo is gorgeous.
Even without seeing a photo, this creamy, cheesy dish would have appealed to me. I had never made turkey T. before, but I'll surely make it again. Mr. Oliver's recipe calls for chicken, not turkey, and uncooked chicken at that; I'm going to give you his original recipe so you can try it even if you don't have leftover cooked turkey around.
Spaghetti TetrazziniFrom
Jamie's Italy, by Jamie Oliver
1 ounce/a small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
Olive oil
4 chicken thighs, boned, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2 handfuls of mixed fresh mushrooms, cleaned and torn
1 cup white wine
1 pound dried spaghetti
2 1/4 cups heavy cream
7 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated
A sprig of fresh basil, leaves picked
Extra-virgin olive oil
Preheat the oven to 400 °F. Put your porcini mushrooms in a bowl and pour over just enough boiling water to cover them (approx. 5 ounces). Put to one side to soak for a few minutes. Heat a saucepan big enough to hold all the ingredients, and pour in a splash of olive oil. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and brown them gently in the oil. Strain the porcini, reserving the soaking water, and add them to the pan with the garlic and fresh mushrooms. Add the wine, with the strained porcini soaking water, and turn the heat down. Simmer gently until the chicken pieces are cooked through and the wine has reduced a little.
Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions and drain well. Add the cream to the pan of chicken, then bring to the boil and turn the heat off. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the drained spaghetti to the creamy chicken sauce and toss well. Add three-quarters of the Parmesan and all of the basil and stir well. Transfer to an ovenproof baking dish or non-stick pan, sprinkle with half the remaining cheese and bake in the oven until golden brown, bubbling and crisp. Divide between your plates, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese before serving.
Serves 4.
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Since I was using leftover roast turkey, and since I also didn't use the dried mushrooms, I did this dish a bit differently. I first briefly sautéed one very large
portobello mushroom (which I had chopped into smallish pieces) and the garlic in the olive oil. Then I added the wine to the pan, stirred in 2 cups of cooked, chopped turkey meat, and simmered it gently while the pasta cooked (I used spaghettini). From there I followed the recipe as shown—well, almost. I made only a half-recipe, so I cut down the ingredients accordingly.
From Italy we move on to India! The names of both countries start with
I, and both dishes are creamy and delicious, but that's where the similarity ends. If you like Indian food, this dish is a must-try.

This year we had a pastured turkey from Stan of
Triple S Farm——for the third year in a row now, I think it is. It was delicious as usual. We roasted it simply, and, per a tip from The Barefoot Contessa,
we didn't baste it at all! Isn't that crazy? Basting the turkey was a mainstay in both Keith's and my childhood homes, but this year, we blithely abandoned the flush-inducing, grease-splattering, oven-heat-dissipating process. And it worked out great. Of course, we
had slathered an entire stick of butter over the birdie before putting him into the oven. And we'd filled him with two halved lemons, fresh thyme, a quartered onion, and a whole head of garlic. What we got was a moist and flavorful roast turkey with browned and crispy skin.
With Triple S, you can't pick the exact turkey that you want; you tell Stan about how many pounds, and he does his best. He told us that his turkeys grew bigger, faster than expected this year, so ours was a few pounds larger than we'd bargained for. That's OK, though, because between the usual sandwiches, the
Mexican turkey stew I've made in previous years, this curry, and the Tetrazzini, we'll polish it off without tiring of it.
This recipe is from Mark Bittman, author of several cookbooks, including
How to Cook Everything, and the food column
The Minimalist and blog
Bitten in
The New York Times. I just love the title of the column related to the recipe: "The Turkey That Went to India," and I wish I'd thought it up myself.
Turkey and Spinach CurryFrom
Mark Bittman via The Minimalist, with a couple of minor additions from me
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
(I used probably 1/2 teaspoon)1 cup tomatoes, chopped (canned are fine; include their juice)
1 cup coconut milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 pound fresh spinach, trimmed of thick stems, washed and roughly chopped
2 cups leftover turkey, white or dark meat or a combination, roughly chopped
Juice of half a lime
Freshly chopped cilantro for garnish
Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; add onion, garlic and ginger and cook until they begin to soften, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne and cook, stirring, until spices are fragrant, about another minute.
Add tomatoes and their juices and coconut milk and sprinkle with salt and pepper; bring mixture to a boil and reduce heat to medium. Simmer for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until tomatoes break down. Stir in garam masala to taste.
Add spinach and turkey to pan and continue to cook until spinach wilts and turkey is warmed through, another 3 to 5 minutes. Squeeze in the juice of half a lime and stir. Adjust seasoning, garnish with cilantro, and serve.
Yield: 4 servings.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
This was a really delicious dish, warming and wonderful over rice. And, as Mr. Bittman says in
his video, "completely different from what you ate on Thanksgiving day."
For a slew of other ideas about how to use roast turkey, see
"Turkey Leftovers" on Elise Bauer's blog Simply Recipes. (Turkey tacos with cranberry salsa sounds like a winner to me.)
And then there's a dish that Alanna Kellogg of Kitchen Parade calls "good ol' plain home cooking and proud of it,"
turkey Tetrazzini.
Ooh—and how about turkey enchiladas? There's a
good-looking recipe for those on Epicurious.
That ought to keep us busy for a while.
Labels: holiday, poultry, recipes