Thanksgiving Leftovers

Its amazing how quiet and empty it feels after my sister left to head back to New York after the festivities ended. Sarah and I are now just sitting in the living room on a rainy and dreary day as we prepare ourselves to go back to work. I cant help but think that this must be what Thanksgiving leftovers feel like.

This year, we hosted a Friendsgiving in DC with my sister, her friend, and a coworker of mine. We have to give props to Bon Appetit for their awesome roast turkey recipe which I minimally adapted. In coming years, I will definitely continue to dry brine and break down the turkey prior to roasting. It saved us a ton of roasting time on the day of Thanksgiving (2 hr for entire turkey), and the turkey leftovers were demolished within 2 days.

Snapped this picture after we already started eating so may be missing some turkey parts.

While many resort to repurposing leftovers into sandwiches, turkey salad, or just having repeat Thanksgiving, my familys use for leftovers was arguably better than the main feast for my siblings and me. First of all, my familys Asian fusion turkey had a soy sauce-base with some oyster sauce and Chinese spices to round it out. Instead of traditional bread stuffing, we would have a glutinous rice stuffing with peanuts, shiitake mushrooms in lieu of carrots, celery.

After dinner, we would strip the leftover meat from the bones (my sister still loves doing this). The bones, bits of leftover meat, and drippings would be turned into satisfying, piping hot, turkey congee or rice porridge for us to look forward to in the morning. With the Instant Pot, this recipe becomes super easy to pull off.

Turkey Congee

Ingredients:

• leftover turkey bones and meat
• rice (2 cups)
• water (7 cups)
• salt
• white pepper
• ginger
• scallions

Place leftover turkey bones, rice, water (I added some leftover broth as well), salt, and white pepper into Instant Pot and cook on stew setting for 35 minutes under pressure. After cooking, fish out the turkey bones and strip them off leftover meat. Add additional salt/white pepper to taste. Top with finely slices ginger and scallions. Serve while hot.

-D