Sunday, April 18, 2010

Turkey Tetrazzini

Back in late October I hosted a pre-Thanksgiving supper club dinner. Because I hosted, I made the entree, a turkey breast. A whole, bone in turkey breast. For 4 girls. To say I had leftovers is an understatement. I found this recipe on AllRecipes and tweaked it to my liking. LOVED IT.
After Christmas, my mom was asking if I had any recipes for leftover turkey, and I told her about having made this with the leftover supper club turkey. She loved the idea, so we made it, and she, too loved it.
Now I bring the recipe to you in case you ever find yourself with so much leftover turkey and no clue what to do with it. It makes a sort of turkey casserole. The sauce for it is great though, so much better than some canned "cream of" soup as a base. I would even recommend trying the sauce for tuna noodle casserole as a way to avoid the canned soup base. Much yummier (and probably a LOT less sodium too).

Each time I have made this I halved in and baked in a 9" round cake pan or an 8x8 cake pan. If you make the whole recipe, use a 9x13 pan I think. The entire recipe should make about 6-8 servings.

Turkey Tetrazzini

Ingredients
  • 1 package uncooked rotini
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • dried parsley, basil and oregano to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1 2/3 cups grated Parmesan cheese
  • 4 cups chopped cooked turkey
  • 1/2 cup bread crumbs
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F . Lightly grease a medium baking dish.
  2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add rotini, and cook until al dente. Drain, and place in the prepared baking dish. Add turkey.
  3. Melt butter with garlic, pepper and parsley/oregano/basil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly for a minute or so until a thick roux forms. Mix in chicken broth and milk. Cook and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Stir in about 1 1/3 cups Parmesan cheese, and remove from heat.
  4. Mix chicken broth mixture (to taste: I used about 1/2 of it, but other people prefer theirs saucier and should use more) with rotini and turkey. Top with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until surface is lightly browned.

2 comments:

Widge said...

mmmmm this sounds good. we don't usually have turkey often over here, would you think it would be ok with chicken instead?

Tart Reform said...

I think you could easily do it with chicken. Because chicken has a less distinct flavor than turkey you may need more seasoning, but should definitely work.

Let me know how it turns out