the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast 27 November: Green Chile Turkey Hash

Today is turkey leftover day for many of us across the fruited plains, and I’ll once again argue that the best thing about cooking a big bird for Thanksgiving is whipping up a great turkey hash sometime before the best leftovers run out.

There are a lot of great turkey hash recipes out there, including one I posted a couple of years ago – Ed’s Kitchen Sink Turkey Hash. Here’s part of the introduction to that recipe…

We have a good friend, Ed, who’s been something of a family icon now for over a decade. He’s been a continual font of inspiration and wisdom, a mentor, a business partner, and even an occasional pain-in-the-ass for most of those years.

Ed loves good food almost as much as we do, though you’d never know to look at him. His thin, fit build looks like that of a fifty-something runner, which is somewhat amazing as he’s in his mid-80’s (he constantly lies about his age, so we don’t know the genuine number). He’s sharp as a tack, more active than most men half his age, and was eating LC/MP/HF long before most of us had heard a whisper of the concept.

Back in 2016, Ed pestered us to help him come up with a “turkey hash recipe that he’d really like”; the final result was this Ed’s Kitchen Sink Turkey Hash, built on the foundation of spicy sausage with a big pile of fairly traditional hash vegetables thrown in. By the way, the poblano adds a nice bit of heat and flavor and the sweet potatoes tie in with the whole Thanksgiving theme, as does the fresh sage…

This year I’ve been chatting more and more often lately with our friend Chef Libby in Austin and we’ve both been playing with various recipes for spicing up the turkey hash game; we both think this Green Chile Turkey Hash is game changer, at least to our Southwestern-oriented palates.

The recipe makes a few key changes from our Kitchen Sink version: a bit of crispy bacon is rendered first, then the onions with a heavy hit of diced poblanos, sweet potatoes, garlic, and a spice package right out of San Antonio and Santa Fe, along with an impressive amount of roasted and diced green chiles. We think it needs a couple of hits of cilantro (cooked in and fresh at service), but sub parsley if you’re not a cilantro fan.

As before, just in cash you’re not a “hash expert”, one of the critical steps for this recipe is the repeated compress, crisp, and turn of the mixture to get crispy, browned, caramelized edges in every bite. Be patient; keep turning and crisping until it suits you; it does take a bit of time if your skillet’s full. The browner and crisper the better…

Libby prefers to prefers to crisp up her sweet potatoes in a bit of butter and avocado oil first thing; she argues that it helps them hold their shape better and provides a bit more tooth to the final hash – we’ve adopted her approach and agree, though you don’t have to do this extra quick step (as the recipe below reflects).

And finally, the soft poached or fried eggs aren’t really necessary, but the runny yolks are magical. And Ed still insists that this be drizzled with hollandaise sauce; Libby drizzles a chipotle hollandaise over hers.

1/3 lb good bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 large sweet onion, chopped medium
1 medium red onion, chopped medium
2 poblano chile peppers, stemmed, seeded, chopped medium
1-2 jalapeño peppers, stemmed, seeded, chopped fine
1 large sweet potato, partially precooked (firm), cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 tbsp good butter

1 lb turkey, white and dark meat, chopped to 1/2 inch or so pieces
1 cup roasted green chiles, small dice

1/3 to 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped, divided
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground chile powder, I prefer a dark ancho powder
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1-2 tsp good salt
1-2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Optional
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, chopped medium
4-6 eggs, poached or fried, with soft yolk
Hollandaise sauce if Ed’s coming over, or this Green Chile sauce

Prep the vegetables and dice the bacon.

Sauté the bacon until browned; remove from the skillet to drain and remove all but (roughly) 2 tbsp of the remaining fat.

While the bacon is rendering and making your kitchen smell awesome, combine the ground cumin, chile powder, Mexican oregano, salt, fresh ground pepper, and 1/2 the cilantro; set aside.

Melt 4 tbsp. of the butter over medium-high heat in the same skillet; add both onions, all the peppers, the sweet potato, garlic, and roughly half the spice mixture. Cook, stirring now and again, until the onions and pepper begin to soften.

Now add another tbsp. of butter, the turkey, cooked bacon, roasted green chiles and the rest of the spice mixture; stir to mix well.

Up your hash game by crisping it up. Smooth the mixture in the skillet out and gently compress it; raise the heat a notch and don’t touch it for 3 minutes or so to let a crispy-crunchy layer of caramelization develop. Then, turn that brown, crunchy bottom over and mix into the upper hash layers. Compress the mixture again and repeat at least two more times – the desired goal here is lots of crunchy, brown goodness.

Serve it right now, topped with a runny-yolk poached or fried egg and drizzled with a spiced up hollandaise if Ed’s coming over, and don’t forget to sprinkle the rest of the cilantro on.

Enjoy.