Pavo Norteño Navideño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy roasting pan with a sturdy rack
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer for the adobo
• •Wide cazuela or heavy 12-inch skillet for the picadillo
• •Instant-read thermometer
• •Kitchen twine
• •Fat separator

Instructions

1. 1

   Dry-salt the bird the night before

   Pat the turkey completely dry inside and out. Rub it generously with kosher salt, on the skin and inside the cavity. Set it on a rack over a sheet pan and refrigerate uncovered overnight, twelve to twenty-four hours. The salt seasons the meat down to the bone and the air dries the skin so it browns properly under the adobo. Skip this step and you will have a pale, underseasoned bird. No me vengas con atajos.

   If your refrigerator is full, salt the bird in the morning and leave it uncovered on the rack for at least eight hours. Less ideal, still a real improvement over a same-day rub.
2. 2

   Toast and soak the chiles for the adobo

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, and pasilla chiles separately, about 30 seconds per side. The skin will puff and the kitchen will smell like the inside of a chile vendor's stall. Move them to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot water, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and turns the adobo bitter. Soak twenty minutes until soft.

   Watch the pasilla. It is the thinnest and burns the fastest. Burned chile is bitter chile and there is no fixing it later.
3. 3

   Blend the adobo norteño

   Drain the chiles, reserving a cup of the soaking liquid. Place them in a blender with the peeled garlic, quartered onion, oregano, cumin, peppercorns, cloves, canela stick, vinegar, and 2 tablespoons salt. Add half a cup of the soaking liquid to start. Blend on high until completely smooth, several minutes. The paste should be thick enough to coat a spoon and dark red, almost brown. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids. You want a clean paste, not a chunky one. Stir in the softened lard until incorporated.

4. 4

   Make the picadillo norteño

   In a wide cazuela or heavy skillet, melt 3 tablespoons lard over medium-high heat. Add the diced onion and cook until translucent, five minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook one minute more. Push the vegetables to the side and add the ground pork and beef. Break the meat up with a wooden spoon and let it brown properly, do not stir constantly. You want color on it, not steamed gray meat. About ten minutes.

5. 5

   Build the picadillo

   Stir in the diced tomato and cook five minutes until the liquid mostly cooks off. Add the pear, apple, plantain, pecans, raisins, olives, and capers. Lower the heat to medium and cook ten more minutes, stirring occasionally. The fruit should soften but still hold its shape. Season with the oregano, canela, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Taste it. The picadillo should be sweet, savory, slightly spiced, with the pecans and raisins giving it texture. This is the picadillo norteño, the same architecture that fills chiles en nogada in Puebla, but here it goes inside a turkey for Nochebuena. Cool it completely before stuffing the bird. Hot stuffing in a cold turkey is a food safety problem.

6. 6

   Apply the adobo

   Take the salted turkey out of the refrigerator one hour before roasting. Pat it dry again. Using your hands, work three quarters of the adobo all over the bird, under the breast skin where you can loosen it with your fingers, into the leg joints, into the cavity, on every surface. Be generous. The remaining adobo gets reserved for basting. La manteca es el sabor and the chile carries the lard into the meat.

7. 7

   Stuff and truss

   Heat the oven to 325F. Pack the cooled picadillo loosely into the cavity, do not jam it in tight or it will not heat through. Tuck the halved onion, halved garlic head, and bay leaves into the cavity on top of the picadillo. Tie the legs together with kitchen twine. Tuck the wing tips behind the back so they do not burn. Set the bird breast-side up on a rack inside a heavy roasting pan. Pour the wine or broth into the bottom of the pan.

8. 8

   Roast slow and baste

   Roast the turkey for about 15 minutes per pound, three to three and a half hours for a 12-to-14 pound bird. Every 45 minutes, baste the bird with the pan juices and a spoonful of the reserved adobo thinned with a little of the basting liquid. After two hours, if the breast is browning too fast, tent it loosely with foil. The bird is done when a thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F and the picadillo in the center of the cavity reads 165F as well. Cavity temperature is non-negotiable for safety.

   If the cavity stuffing has not reached 165F when the bird is done, scoop it out into a baking dish, cover with foil, and bake separately for fifteen minutes while the bird rests. Better that than under-cooked picadillo.
9. 9

   Rest and serve

   Move the turkey to a large carving board and tent loosely with foil. Rest for 30 minutes. Do not skip this. The juices need time to redistribute or they end up on the cutting board. Pour the pan juices into a fat separator and reserve the dark red, lard-rich juice for spooning over the carved meat. Scoop the picadillo out of the cavity into a warm serving dish. Carve the bird at the table. Serve with warm flour tortillas, the picadillo on the side, the pan juice over the top, and pickled jalapenos en escabeche. La Nochebuena en su mesa. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •The pecans should come from Coahuila or Chihuahua if you can find them. They are richer and oilier than the bagged pecans you find in most supermarkets, and they are the reason the picadillo norteño tastes like the north. If you cannot get them, buy whole pecans from a reliable source and toast them lightly on a comal before chopping. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Do not skip the overnight dry-salt. A turkey is a big, dense bird and surface-only seasoning leaves the breast bland. Twelve hours minimum. Twenty-four is better. The senoras in Saltillo will tell you the same thing.
• •Flour tortillas, not corn. This is a northern dish and flour tortillas are a northern tradition, not a Tex-Mex invention. Hand-stretched, cooked on a hot comal, served warm in a cloth servilleta. The leftover turkey and picadillo go into tacos the next day and that is half the reason you make a whole bird.
• •If you have access to manteca de cerdo from a Mexican carniceria, use it. The lard you find in plastic tubs at the supermarket has been hydrogenated and the flavor is dead. Real rendered pork lard is the difference between an adobo that tastes round and one that tastes flat.

Advance Preparation

• •Salt the turkey 12 to 24 hours ahead and refrigerate it uncovered on a rack. The skin needs to dry to brown properly.
• •The adobo can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor only deepens.
• •The picadillo can be made one day ahead, refrigerated, and brought back to room temperature before stuffing the bird. Never stuff a turkey with hot picadillo and never refrigerate a stuffed raw turkey overnight, both are food safety problems.
• •Leftover turkey and picadillo make extraordinary tacos the next day, wrapped in warm flour tortillas with a spoonful of the pan juice and a few pickled jalapenos.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 420g)