7 new ways to enjoy leftover Roast Turkey
MANILA, Philippines — While Thanksgiving is basically an American tradition celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, many Filipinos have started to adopt the celebration as their own in recent years.
Roasting turkey at home may not be commonplace in the country because they are huge and do not fit into regular ovens, but ordering turkey to serve at home, joining formal Thanksgiving dinners organized by American companies with a presence in Metro Manila, or booking Thanksgiving dinner in hotels and restaurants that offer it have become more common.
In any case, the center of the celebratory Thanksgiving dinner is Roast Turkey, which is shared among guests.
The big bird is carved into thin slices and served with mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce and some vegetables. Since the turkey is huge, it oftentimes has leftovers, which you can still eat as is, with all its delightful accompaniments, for the next few days.
But if you are getting bored with it or are looking to enjoy it in other ways, there are so many recipes that you can come up with using leftover roast turkey. You would even be surprised with all the delicious stuff that you can come up with.
Here are some suggestions:
1. Make a gourmet turkey sandwich with leftover roast turkey. Put thin slices of lean turkey meat on slices of sourdough bread or halved segment of French baguette that has been lightly toasted. Layer with lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, cheese and cranberry sauce.
2. Serve it with gravy. Make your own gravy, pour over leftover roast turkey and serve with dinner rolls or loaf bread slices to soak up the gravy.
3. Make roast turkey noodle soup. It is like roast chicken which, when cooked into a Chicken Mami type noodle soup dish, gives off that extra rich roasted flavor to the soup that is simply marvelous. Remember to shred the turkey meat into loose strips.
4. Turn it into macaroni soup. Cut the leftover turkey into cubes and cook with macaroni into a simple soup.
5. Cook shredded turkey with sliced mushrooms in gravy. Serve over rice.
6. Make chicken avocado salad. Add some cut-up hard-boiled eggs. Your dressing can be light mayo lightly tossed into the salad mixture or a light, fresh lemon dressing.
7. Make turkey salad the way you would chicken salad. Then serve as filling for loaf bread or pita pockets, or scoop some over English muffin for an open-faced sandwich.
