JiaYi Turkey Rice Image Used Under Creative Commons License From deskgram.net
Citizens, few things are as exciting to the globetrotting Leader of TFD Nation as the opportunity to sample street food in distant lands – even the most humble of dishes can turn out to be a gustatory powerhouse crackling with 1,000,000 volts of pure flavor!
This is one of them – I give you the beloved dish of Taiwanese street food: turkey rice!
Yes – TURKEY!
As noted in this lightly-edited excerpt from choochoocachew.com:
Turkey is not a popular source of meat in Taiwan and it’s not easy to find especially in the north. There are a few turkey farms down south and my grandparents used to raise turkeys. There aren’t a whole lot of dishes made with turkey, but there is one and one dish only that everybody knows- JiaYi turkey and rice.
JiaYi(嘉義,jia1yi4) is a county situated in southern Taiwan, I guess that’s where the turkeys are raised because for some reason turkey and rice has never been related to any other cities, and when people talk about the dish-even in another city- it’s always “Jiayi turkey and rice”. That’s the dish’s official name in Taiwan.
As further elucidated on itsmydish.com:
(In JiaYi) There is a water fountain roundabout (圓環噴水池) that is called “the holy ground of democracy.” During election time, candidates from different parties will all come to this area to have their campaign rallies (造勢晚會).
Unlike other regions in Taiwan, there are never conflicts and the crowd is friendly to each other. The atmosphere makes this area the most crowded place in Chiayi during election season, which is pretty much all the time!
One guy spotted the opportunity and come up with turkey rice, which is the original Taiwanese Stewed Pork Rice with turkey grease and tender turkey breast meat on top.
Because people like the turkey rice so much that they skipped the stew pork and just served turkey by itself. Soon, the fame of the turkey rice spread out like wildfire, and now you can see turkey rice (or some called it chicken rice if they substitute with regular chicken breast) at every corner of Taiwan.
This dish bears many similarities to the famed mainland Chinese dish known as Hainan Chicken Rice – but it has subtle but important differences that go beyond just substituting turkey for chicken! The condiments aren’t spicy, for one thing, and the flavor profile is also different.
Citizens, my version of the classic is based on a zero-compromise approach – this is simple food, and that means it is absolutely unforgiving if you use less than awesome ingredients or cut back on techniques to save time.
The flavorful turkey stock is a key part of this recipe, so we will make our own from scratch and let it simmer for many hours to extract every last iota of flavor! To amp up the turkey flavor even more, we will cook the turkey breast *IN* turkey stock, made by combining turkey demiglace with water and seasonings. You can buy the demiglace here.
To garnish, we will use the classic Takuan Japanese pickles (Taiwan was occupied by the Japanese for many years, and there are Japanese ingredients that have become embedded in the local cuisine) – you can buy a high-quality version without the nasty fake yellow artificial color here. Better still – make your OWN takuan pickles from My own recipe here. I like to add at least two other varieties of pickles as well – these are straight from Kyoto, Japan!
JiaYi turkey rice is typically garnished with fried shallots, I also like to use the turkey ‘cracklings’, made from the ground skin of the breast from which you render the all-important turkey fat that is the flavor base of the dish!
I know with 100% certainty that if you have ever tried JiaYi turkey rice in Taiwan, mine will be even better! If you haven’t – prepare to become a turkey rice convert, Citizens, for a comforting and delicious meal!
Peel the skin off both halves of the turkey breast, and then grind it up in a food processor. Put the skin into a frying pan and render out as much fat as possible. Remove and save the cracklings to garnish the turkey rice and save all the fat as well.
For the turkey stock, add ½ the breast, cover with water, add turkey demiglace and all the stock ingredients. Bring to a boil, skim if needed, then turn down to a very low simmer and cook for a minimum of 4 hours, and up to 12 if you really want the ultimate stock! You should top the stock up with water if it looks too low.
Strain the stock and discard the solids – the meat and seasonings are dead to you, all the flavor is where it is supposed to be: in the stock itself!
If the stock doesn’t look to taste rich enough, you can return the strained stock to the pot and reduce to your liking.
It’s very hard to have the perfect timing for cooking breast meat, as it is all too easy to overcook the breast. The traditional way is to boil the turkey breast.
My trick to a tender turkey breast is to cook it for 15 minutes in the turkey stock at a rolling boil, then turn off the heat and let the residual heat cook it for another 5 minutes. Check the meat – if it needs more time, boil for another few minutes and check again until done. Tender and juicy is the operative word here!
Of course, if you are fortunate enough to own a home Sous Vide machine, you can always cook the perfect turkey breast! Set the temperature to 150F for 1 ½ hours and you are good to go!
Let the meat cool, then use two forks to pull the turkey breast into strips, it’s super easy that way!
Cook up some rice. While it is cooling down, fry the shallots in some turkey fat until crisp.
When serving turkey rice, measure 1 cup of rice and put it in a bowl first, then top the rice with ½ cup of pulled turkey strips. Add 1 tbsp, or more to taste of turkey fat and then put 3 tbsp of sauce on top of it. This is one serving of turkey rice. Garnish with fried shallots, cilantro and cracklings and serve with pickles on the side.
Prep Time:0 hours
Cook Time:0 hours
How useful was this post, Citizen?
Click to rate My Recipe, Citizen - 5 hearts are ALWAYS appreciated!
Average rating / 5. Vote count:
No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.
As you found this post useful...
Follow us on social media, Citizen!
We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!
Get Recipe Ingredients
Leave a Reply