TURKEY with a TWIST

by CATHERINE CURRIN

photography by EAMON QUEENEY

Oscar Diaz is turning Thanksgiving as we know it upside down. The James Beard-nominated executive chef of Cortez has been cooking up fresh, flavor-packed seafood on Glenwood Avenue for five years. And much like his popular restaurant, his Thanksgiving menu riffs on a collection of traditions and influences from his family, neighbors and travels.

Diaz grew up in Chicago with his brother and his parents, who were both born in Mexico and moved to the United States as teenagers. “Thanksgiving was one of those holidays we always celebrated, but it wasn’t traditional,” says Diaz. “It wasn’t in my mom’s repertoire of cooking.” For the Diaz family, celebratory meals included things like pozole, mole and tamales — dishes that were just as time-consuming as a roast turkey and all the fixings, but with a totally different flavor profile.

So when someone would drop off a turkey to the house as a holiday gift, it was a family task to figure out how to make use of the large bird, he says. “You can break down a turkey and make 10 dishes; they’re fantastic, creative and not repetitive,” says Diaz. Instead of roasting the whole turkey and bringing it out on a platter, they’d break it apart and shred it to fill tacos or tamales, or roast the turkey breast to serve with Mexican sides like salsa and guacamole. “We made our own version of a Thanksgiving feast,” says Diaz. “It was more about gathering — sitting down and having a nice meal together.”

Over the decades, Diaz and his family picked up new traditions from friends and neighbors from all walks of life, but always maintained an infusion of Mexican traditions in the mix, resulting in a delicious melting pot of flavors and cultures. “I didn’t cook back then, but I ate very well,” says Diaz. And as he got older, he started to get more excited about playing around in the kitchen and brought that same spirit of experimentation to both his professional cooking and the way he en- tertains at home. In 2011, Diaz moved to Raleigh to work with the Ibarra family on Jose and Sons, and over time he became executive chef at Cortez.

These days, every Thanksgiving is always a little different. “The only tradition is to get together with friends — I always make sure to gather a bunch of people who aren’t near family,” Diaz says. Often, his communal celebrations include staff from Cortez and folks in the industry, true appreciators of cuisine who challenge Diaz to flex his creative muscles in the kitchen. “It might not be practical, but I’ve made things like pizza, duck and carne asada for Thanksgiving,” he laughs.

While the menu is different every year, it always fuses Mexican traditions with new inventions. Creamy, rich guacamole becomes decadent and celebratory with crab meat. He’ll turn the turkey into a hearty pozole with salsa verde, paired with cornbread that’s infused with poblano peppers. And, of course, there are his own Thanksgiving traditions garnered over the years, like his guava and goat cheese empanadas. “A family in our neighborhood would come over and bring crackers and cream cheese topped with guava paste,” says Diaz. “We all loved it, and eventually, it was added into the lexicon of what the Diaz household is.”

His Thanksgiving menu may be unexpected for many — but it’s also exactly what Diaz thinks a “traditional American dinner” should look like. “I’m always trying to explain that food and tradition can change,” he says. “They’re always growing and evolving.”

“We made our own version of a Thanksgiving feast. It was more about gathering — sitting down and having a nice meal together.” — Oscar Diaz

Char-grilled Oysters on the Half-Shell

Ingredients

5 strips of bacon

10 garlic cloves, minced ½ stick butter

¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated 1 cup panko bread crumbs

12 fresh raw oysters

1 jalapeño, diced

Directions

Cook bacon in a pan until crispy. Remove and set aside. Add half of the minced garlic to the rendered bacon fat and cook until fragrant and golden. Add butter, then remove from heat and reserve.

Toss the panko with the parmesan. Once the bacon is cool, finely chop.

Shuck the oysters and place the half-shell with the oyster on a grate that can be placed over a hot grill. Crumble bacon, diced jalapeño and reserved garlic into each shell, then top with the panko-parmesan mixture. Place the grate on a hot grill and spoon some of the melted garlic butter over it; you’ll get a little flare from the grill. Grill for three to 10 minutes, depending on the size, until you see the oyster juices bubbling. Remove and serve.

Crab Guacamole

INGREDIENTS

5 ripe avocados

3 serrano peppers

3 ripe Roma tomatoes

½ small white onion

1 bunch cilantro

Limes

Salt to taste

8 ounces jumbo lump crab

Radish, for garnish

Tortilla chips

Directions

Core and peel avocados and smash or cube them into a bowl. Reserve a few sprigs of cilantro, then finely dice the other vegetables and mix them into the bowl. Squeeze in lime juice to taste.

Pick over the crab to make sure there are no stray pieces of shell, then gently fold into guacamole. Garnish with sliced radish and cilantro leaves. Serve with chips as a snack. The crab can also be left out, if you prefer plain guacamole.

Poblano Cornbread

INGREDIENTS

4 poblano peppers

1 cup butter

20 ounces buttermilk

5 whole eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 cups yellow cornmeal

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup queso cotija

¼ cup queso fresco

Sour cream

Directions

Roast poblano peppers over a fire until the skins are blistered (if a fire is not available, broil for about a minute on each side). Once blistered, remove from fire and cover loosely with foil; let sweat for about 10 minutes so that the skins loosen up.

Peel the poblanos’ skin off, remove the seeds, and cut into strips. Add the poblano strips to the pan with the onions and season with a little salt.

Combine buttermilk and butter in a pan and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, pour the mixture into a bowl and add the eggs. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking soda and cotija cheese. Pour the buttermilk-butter-egg mixture over the dry ingredients and mix.

Place a large cast iron skillet into the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Pull the skillet out, lightly grease it, then add the batter; top with crumbled queso fresco.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean. Brush with melted butter and serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Pozole Verde de Pavo

INGREDIENTS

Turkey Stock (recipe online)

21 ounces hominy

2 to 4 cups cooked shredded turkey, to taste Salsa Verde (recipe below)

For garnish: Tostadas, shredded cabbage, chili flakes, limes, oregano, sliced radish, cilantro

Directions

In a large pot, bring the turkey stock to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Add in the Salsa Verde and simmer for 20 minutes, then add in shredded turkey and let simmer for an additional 20 to 30 minutes. Taste and adjust salt.

Serve with tostadas, shredded cabbage, chili flakes, limes, oregano, radishes and cilantro on the side.

Salsa Verde

INGREDIENTS

17 ounces of tomatillo (roughly 10 medium tomatillos)

3 jalapeños

3 poblano peppers

5 ounces pepitas

12 garlic cloves

12 scallions

2 bunches cilantro

1 bunch parsley (flat or curly)

1 ½ cups spinach, packed

½ cup of epazote leaves (find at a Latin market)

½ teaspoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of oregano

3 whole allspice berries

Directions

Put tomatillos and jalapeños in a pot with water and simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes. Pay attention: when the tomatillos go from light to dark green, cut the heat and remove them so that they don’t pop in the water. Char the poblano peppers in a pan; remove from heat and cover loosely with foil to sweat for about 10 minutes.

Dry-toast the pumpkin seeds in a pan over medium heat until they become fragrant; remove and reserve. Lightly dry-toast all the spices together.

Add tomatillos, jalapeños, peppers, pumpkin seeds and spices to the blender and combine using a little stock to thin.

Heat a pot to medium-high, add some oil to coat bottom, then pour salsa verde in pot and lower heat to medium. Stir occasionally to avoid scorching the sauce. Cook until thickened, about 20 minutes.

Turkey Tamales

Ingredients

About 2 pounds shredded cooked turkey

6 guajillo chiles

3 pasilla chiles (find at a Latin market)

2 ancho chiles

10 garlic cloves

½ red onion

5 Roma tomatoes

½ teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon cumin

2 cloves

2 allspice

Salt to taste

2 cups turkey stock, if necessary

12 corn husks, soaked in water

Masa (recipe online)

Directions

Char the Roma tomatoes in a hot pan, then add to a pot and simmer in water until softened all the way through. While the tomatoes are simmering, toast all the chiles lightly in a medium heat pan; press down on them lightly so that the oils are released and they are fragrant. Do not overtoast as this will create a bitter taste. Once toasted, add the chiles to the pot with the tomatoes and simmer until softened as well.

Lightly toast the garlic; reserve. Dry-toast all the spices in a pan for about a minute and reserve with the garlic. Then put the reserved spices and garlic in a blender with the tomato-chile mixture and blend, adding turkey stock for moisture if necessary. The sauce should have a thick consistency that can coat the back of a spoon. Once blended, strain sauce through a fine strainer. Heat a pot to medium-high, add a little oil to just coat the pan and add in sauce (caution: it will bubble a bit). Turn heat down and let simmer for 10 minutes while stirring on and off. Add in shredded turkey and simmer until the sauce and turkey have almost become one ingredient. You want the mix to be tight so that the tamale will be easier to assemble. If it is too saucy, add more turkey or cook down to reduce the sauce. Once consistency is reached, adjust salt.

To assemble the tamales: Open up the pre-soaked husks. Spoon in the masa and spread it very thinly across the inside of the corn husk, ¾ of the way up the husk to the narrow end. Spoon turkey mole into the center of the masa then fold one side over the filling, then the other; finish by folding up the narrow end. Repeat until masa or mole have finished.

Place all the tamales in a steamer and steam for one hour. Once ready, tamales should easily come off the corn husk and the masa should be cooked all the way through, with no raw taste. Check before you take them out; if one’s not ready, leave on longer and check every 30 minutes.

Guava and Goat Cheese Empanadas

INGREDIENTS

8 ounces goat cheese, room temperature

Pinch of salt

½ cup heavy cream

8 ounces guava paste

1 whole egg

1 box puff pastry sheets, room temperature

1 cup sugar

Maldon sea salt

Directions

In a stand mixer, add in the goat cheese and a pinch of salt. Begin to whip, and once the cheese is whipped, add in 2/3 of the heavy cream (reserve the rest for later). Keep mixing and add in the powdered sugar. Once fully incorporated, put the mixture in a piping bag or in a Ziploc bag with the edge cut off for piping.

Next, cut thin strips of guava paste; reserve on a plate. Beat together the remaining heavy cream with one egg until fully incorporated as an egg wash.

Working quickly, cut circles in the puff pastry with a 5-inch ring mold. Pipe the goat cheese mixture into the center of a pastry circle and add a strip or two of guava paste. Brush the inside edges of the pastry with egg wash and then fold over in half so that the edges meet. Pinch the edges together with a fork to seal them. Repeat to use all the pastry and filling. (Note: If not immediately baking, cover the raw empanadas with a damp paper towel to prevent drying.)

Brush remaining egg wash over the filled pastries and sprinkle a little rock sugar and Maldon sea salt on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

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