Caldo de Pavo Yucateco

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 10 to 12-quart stockpot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for charring and toasting
• •Fine-mesh strainer or chinois
• •Shallow skimming spoon or ladle
• •Small mortar or molcajete for working the recado

Instructions

1. 1

   Char the aromatics

   Heat a dry comal or heavy cast iron skillet over medium-high until it smokes lightly. Place the onion halves cut-side down, the garlic halves cut-side down, and the whole chiles xcatik on the surface. Let them blacken in patches, about 6 to 8 minutes for the onion and garlic, 2 to 3 minutes per side for the chiles. You want dark spots on the skin, not full carbon. The char is the smoke of the broth. In Yucatán they call this tatemado. Skip it and your caldo tastes washed out.

   Leave the skin on the onion and garlic. The skins darken, the sugars caramelize, and the broth picks up a deep amber color that you cannot get any other way.
2. 2

   Toast the spices and oregano

   On the same comal, toast the peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and Yucatecan oregano for about 30 to 45 seconds, just until fragrant. The kitchen will smell like a Mérida spice stall on a Saturday morning. Pull them off the heat the moment you smell them. Burned spices turn the broth bitter and there is no walking that back.

3. 3

   Build the recado base

   In a small bowl, work the recado blanco together with the toasted spices and oregano using the back of a spoon. Add the naranja agria juice a tablespoon at a time, mashing until you have a loose, fragrant paste the color of bone. This is the grammar of Yucatecan cooking. The recado does not get blended into a smoothie. It gets worked by hand until it knows the spices.

   If you cannot find recado blanco, the Mérida-style paste is built from toasted black peppercorns, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, garlic, oregano, and salt, ground on a metate. Some markets in Mexico call it recado de puchero. Ask at the recaderías. They will know.
4. 4

   Bloom the recado in lard

   In your stockpot, melt the lard over medium heat. Add the recado paste and cook it for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until it darkens slightly and the fat starts to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This is where the spices go from raw to integrated. The kitchen should smell of allspice and pepper, not of a wet pantry.

5. 5

   Add the turkey and cold water

   Add the turkey pieces to the pot, turning each one to coat it in the recado. Pour in the cold water, 5 quarts, enough to cover the turkey by two inches. Add the charred onion, charred garlic, charred chiles xcatik, bay leaves, epazote if you have it, and the salt. Cold water, never hot. Cold water draws the flavor out slowly. Hot water locks the proteins and you end up with cloudy broth and dry meat.

6. 6

   Bring up slowly and skim

   Heat the pot over medium until the water reaches a bare simmer, about 25 minutes. As it climbs, gray foam will rise to the top. Skim it patiently with a shallow spoon every few minutes for the first 20 minutes. A clean broth is a Yucatecan broth. The señoras in the mercados of Mérida skim the foam like they are pulling weeds from a garden. Take the time.

7. 7

   Simmer low for two hours

   Once the foam has stopped rising and the liquid is clean, reduce the heat to low. You want lazy bubbles breaking the surface every few seconds, never a rolling boil. Cover partially and cook for 2 hours, until the turkey is tender enough to pull from the bone with a fork but still has structure. A rolling boil clouds the broth and shreds the meat into rags before it has given up its flavor.

   If you are using only legs and thighs, 2 hours is enough. A whole turkey with breast pieces, pull the breast at the 1 hour mark and let it rest off to the side, then return it at the end to warm through. Turkey breast simmered for 2 hours is sawdust.
8. 8

   Strain and finish

   Lift the turkey out with tongs and set it aside to cool until you can handle it. Pull the meat from the bones in large pieces, cover, and reserve. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean pot, pressing on the solids to release every drop. Discard the spent aromatics. Taste the broth. It should be deeply savory, faintly tangy from the naranja agria, with the warm whisper of allspice and clove. Adjust salt now, not later. The broth seasons the dishes you build on it, so it has to be assertive on its own.

9. 9

   Hold or build forward

   If you are making escabeche oriental, sopa de lima, or relleno blanco, the broth and the shredded turkey are now your foundation. If you are holding it, cool the broth in the pot in an ice bath until it is below room temperature, then refrigerate. The fat will rise and set. Leave it there. That layer protects the broth and gets stirred back in when you reheat. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Naranja agria, sour orange, is the citrus of Yucatán and there is no perfect substitute. If you cannot find it, mix 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice, 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 1 tablespoon grapefruit juice, and a small splash of white vinegar. You are getting close, not all the way. The sour orange is bitter and floral in a way the substitute is not. Tell your guests what you are missing so they know what to look for next time.
• •Recado blanco is the toasted-spice paste of Yucatán, different from recado rojo (the achiote paste used for cochinita pibil) and recado negro (the charred-chile paste of relleno negro). If you cannot find recado blanco from a Yucatecan recadería, grind your own from black peppercorns, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, garlic, oregano yucateco, and salt. Do not substitute Italian or Mediterranean oregano. The flavor is wrong.
• •Chile xcatik (also written x'catic) is a Peninsular yellow chile with a clean, grassy heat. If you cannot find it, the closest is the yellow guero or chile largo. Never substitute jalapeño or serrano, the green heat is wrong for this broth.
• •Make this broth one day ahead if you can. The flavor deepens overnight and the fat sets into a layer you can lift off or stir back in depending on how rich you want the final dish. The señoras in Mérida do not make caldo de pavo the same day they serve it.
• •Save the shredded turkey separately from the broth. Cover it with a few ladles of broth so it does not dry out, and refrigerate. It is the protein for whatever dish you are building, sopa de lima, escabeche, panuchos.

Advance Preparation

• •Caldo de pavo improves with one night of rest in the refrigerator. Cool the strained broth, refrigerate, and the fat will set on top as a protective seal. Stir it back in when reheating or lift it off if you want a leaner finish.
• •The broth keeps refrigerated for 4 days and freezes well for up to 3 months. Freeze in quart containers so you can pull out exactly what you need for sopa de lima or escabeche.
• •The shredded turkey keeps refrigerated for 3 days, covered in a ladle of broth so it stays moist. It does not freeze as well as the broth, the texture suffers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 600g)