Hey everyone! In advance of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share a family turkey recipe! Fair warning, this takes FOREVER to cook. I do it in advance of the big day.  Enjoy.

Sauce: Enough for or a 15 pound turkey or smaller  

Ingredients:

Relajo (spice mix).. you can find this at some Mexican grocery stores in a little baggie or make your own

---chile ciruela

---chile wake

---ajonjoli

---pepitoria

---laurel

---ajo

3 chopped onions

2 Red bell peppers chopped

1/2 small can tomato paste 

12 peeled tomatoes (from a can, buy two large cans and use 12, plus juice)

2 cartons Chicken stock

Directions:

Toast the relajo on a frying pan until its fragrant 

Cook the onions until transluesent, add bell peppers and relajo

Add tomatoes and tomato juice 

Cook low and bubbly for 30 min 

Blend the sauce as fine as possible (you can use regular blender, but let it cool before blending, or immersion blender)

Add half carton of chicken stock and cook for 20 min

Get another pot. Place a fine strainer over the empty pot, and slowly strain the sauce into the pot using a spoon to push the sauce against the strainer and squeeze as much juice out as possible. This juice should be thin and red. Place the pulp into a bowl and repeat until all the thick blended sauce is strained.

Now take the pulp and put it back in the original pot, adding another half carton of stock. Cook for 20 min.

Repeat the straining. Cook one more time with more broth. Strain again. (so three rounds of cooking and straining)

You can throw away the pulp, and what you have left in the pot is your sauce! Season to taste. If its too sour, mix in some brown sugar

For the turkey:

Ingredients:

·      Butter

·      Mustard

·      Worcestershire sauce

·      1/2 cup white wine

·      Stuffed spanish olives

·      Capers

·      Salt

·      Pepper

·      Paprika

Directions:

The night before, poke the turkey with a fork. Rub the butter, mustard, and worcestershire sauce all over the turkey and get inside the skin

Put the turkey in a pan with the sauce, olives and capers drained, white wine, paprika and cook in oven. 

Make sure you baste often it while its cooking

The sauce gets its final flavor from the turkey. After cooking with the turkey, it can be frozen used as sauce on other things.  Also, a good Salvadoran post-thanksgiving meal is pan con pavo/ pan con chumpe, which is a turkey sandwich with the sauce, radishes, and cucumbers. Use a crusty bread.

Sauce can be made a week in advance, and keep in Tupperware in the fridge. Or freeze if holding for longer.

Throwback to last year's stuffing recipe: