How to Turn a Turkey Carcass to Tasty Porridge

The turkey carcass is your bonus from the Thanksgiving meal. It’s the basis for a rich turkey stock, so don’t toss it until you’ve extracted all the flavor.

Usually, I’m too tired to deal with the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving dinner. So I cover the turkey in plastic wrap and take it apart the next day.

First, I separate the nice turkey slices. They’ll be used for hot turkey sandwiches, served open-faced, drizzled with leftover gravy, with stuffing and cranberry sauce on the side.

Then I bag the smaller chunks. They’ll be made into a turkey salad with diced apple, a handful of raisins, and toasted pecans, moistened with mayo and seasoned with curry powder and mango chutney.

What to Do with the Turkey Carcass

In my family, we always made turkey chowder. But my mother-in-law, known as Po Po (Cantonese for grandma), taught me to make jook. This delicious rice porridge is enlivened by fresh greens – shredded iceberg lettuce, green onion, and cilantro–added at the table. 

The combination of the warm and creamy jook with the cold and crunchy mix-ins offers an inspired contrast of flavor and texture.  Add a drizzle of soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil to finish, if you like. It’s the ultimate comfort food.

Hawai’i Magazine Editor Catherine Toth Fox described it best as: “A hug in a bowl.”

Learn more about rice porridge across Asian cultures at FOOD52.

Po Po’s Turkey Jook

• 1 turkey carcass
• Salt, to taste
• 1 cup short-grain rice, washed and drained
• Sliced green onion
• Roughly chopped cilantro
• Shredded iceberg or romaine lettuce
• Soy sauce
• Sesame oil (optional)

Put turkey carcass in a deep pot and add water to cover.  Bring to a boil; turn heat low and simmer 2 hours.  Remove carcass from broth and set carcass aside.  Strain broth.

Measure 8 cups of broth into a pot. If you don’t have enough liquid, add water or canned chicken broth to make up the difference. Season broth with salt. Salt sparingly if you plan to add soy sauce later.

Add the rice and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 1 hour or until the rice grains break up and amalgamate into a creamy whole.  Stir more frequently as the jook thickens, to prevent burning. 

Meanwhile, pick the meat from the carcass and shred into bite-size pieces.  Add the meat pieces to the pot the last 15 minutes of cooking. The jook should be of porridge consistency. If too thick, add more chicken broth or water, stir and heat through. If too thin, add some leftover cooked rice.

Serve in bowls and pass the green onion, cilantro and lettuce to mix in. Add a splash of soy sauce and sesame oil, if using, to suit your taste.

Makes 4-6 main dish servings

For ten years, Sandy was director of a national culinary center for one of the world’s largest public relations agencies, where she supervised the ideation and creation of more than a thousand recipes. A former magazine and newspaper food editor, Sandy has been a frequent judge of the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Awards.

Notes:

• You can use a slow cooker or instant pot on the slower cooker setting.
• Other mix-in options include finely chopped chiles, chopped roasted salted peanuts, chopped preserved cabbage, or fried shallots.
• Be thorough when you remove the meat from the carcass to ensure you find and discard all the small bones.
• You don’t have to reserve making jook for the Thanksgiving turkey. I’ve made it with a Costco rotisserie chicken carcass. You can also use a ham bone.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all who live in the U.S. And on this holiday, when we count our blessings, I want to thank you wherever you live in the world, for visiting this site and being a part of the “Call Me Grandma!” family.

With gratitude,
Sandy

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