Turn leftover Christmas turkey into delicious rice – 12/25/2023 – Marcão’s Recipes

I’m not stupid enough to try to teach you a complete Christmas dinner –because Christmas dinner is already over, right?–, but I can give you a great suggestion to use up the leftover turkey.

My approach to leftovers is to make something very different from the original meal because, after all, eating the same thing for days on end is tiring as hell. We all know this, but we seem to unlearn it when the end of the year arrives.

Christmas turkey without leftovers is something that simply doesn’t exist. To honor the nababesque leftovers from the Christmas feast, I propose transforming them into robust and tasty rice with red wine, sausage
(smoked pepperoni, paio or Portuguese) and green olives.

The inspiration here is the sensational duck rice broth served at the late Portuguese restaurant Antiquarius – born in Leblon, but which had a long-lasting branch in São Paulo. With the obvious difference of swapping the duck for turkey. The flavor structure comes from a dense, gelatinous broth that you make with turkey bones in a pressure cooker.

I suggest using the meat and bones of the turkey and neck: these are two pieces that are usually forgotten at dinner, as the general attack mainly the breast.

The wing and neck have a lot of cartilage and skin that make the broth fabulous; the meat is much tastier than dry brisket. In fact, the breast is to blame for the turkey’s dull appearance.

If you don’t have these pieces left, that’s okay: proceed with whatever meat and bones you have on hand. For people who haven’t roasted a turkey for Christmas, buying the wing and neck insulated is an economical option. That’s what I did, in fact (I imagine you deduced that there wasn’t enough time for me to cook leftovers from supper before writing this).

This is a dish of Portuguese origin, but I prefer to make it like Italian risotto: adding the broth little by little and stirring. Not because it is a superior technique, but because it is easier to dose the liquid without making it soggy or drying out.

The idea is to have a caldoso rice – the name gives the clue that it will have broth, but it’s not meant to turn into soup.
Duck is not goose and turkey is not duck, but I can guarantee that this rice is really good. With all due respect to the Antiquarius legacy.

CHRISTMAS TURKEY RICE

Difficulty: average

Performance: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 wings and 1 roasted turkey neck (400 g of shredded meat plus bones and
• the skin)
• 2 onions
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 1 carrot
• 1 stalk of celery
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 150 g needle rice
• 200 g smoked sausage, sliced
• ½ bottle of dry red wine
• 1 cup pitted green olives
• Salt and black pepper and parsley to taste

WAY OF DOING
1. In a pressure cooker, place the turkey bones, 1 whole onion, half the garlic, carrot, celery and bay leaves. Cover with water and cook for two hours (after gaining pressure). Strain and reserve the broth, discarding the solids.

2. Heat the oil and sauté the remaining chopped onion and garlic until the onion is transparent. Add the rice and sauté quickly. Add the shredded meat and sausage, mix and add the wine.

3. When the wine has reduced by half, pour in a ladle of the turkey broth. Continue cooking, stirring and adding broth whenever the rice begins to dry, until the grains are cooked, but
firm, with some excess broth.

4. Add the olives, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately, very hot.

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