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Turkey Mole Verde
![Turkey Mole Verde](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/11/23/dining/23LEFTOVERS3/23LEFTOVERS3-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1cup pumpkin seeds
- ½cup sesame seeds
- 1teaspoon ground cumin
- 2cups turkey or chicken stock, preferably homemade
- ¼cup neutral-tasting oil (such as canola or grapeseed)
- ½medium yellow onion, peeled and cut into large pieces (about 1 cup)
- 2garlic cloves, peeled
- 1pound tomatillos, husks removed and halved
- 4green chard leaves, stems removed, roughly chopped
- 5romaine leaves, roughly chopped
- 3 to 4jalapeños, stemmed and cut into large pieces, to taste
- 1½cups coarsely chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems (about 1 large bunch)
- 2teaspoons dried oregano
- 4cups shredded cooked turkey (about 1 pound), light and dark meat separated
- 1tablespoon kosher salt
- Steamed white rice, for serving
- Corn tortillas, for serving
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add pumpkin seeds and toast, stirring constantly, until they swell, pop and turn a deep golden color, 3 to 4 minutes. Spread seeds out onto a baking sheet in a single layer to cool.
- Step 2
Place sesame seeds in heated pan, and return pan to medium heat. Toast, stirring constantly, until they turn a deep golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Spread them out alongside pumpkin seeds to cool.
- Step 3
When cool, place pumpkin and sesame seeds in the work bowl of a large blender (or food processor) and grind them into a fine powder. Transfer ground seeds to a medium bowl, add cumin and 1 cup turkey or chicken stock. Stir mixture to make a thick paste.
- Step 4
Heat a large Dutch oven or similar pot over medium heat, and add neutral oil. When oil shimmers, add seed paste and fry, stirring and scraping constantly, until paste is dry and deep golden in color, 6 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat.
- Step 5
In the blender or food processor, purée onion, garlic, tomatillos and ½ cup chicken stock until smooth. Add chard, romaine leaves, jalapeños, cilantro and oregano and purée again.
- Step 6
Return Dutch oven to medium heat, and transfer purée to the Dutch oven. Add in remaining ½ cup stock, shredded dark-meat turkey and salt and bring to a simmer, stirring from time to time. Simmer for 15 minutes, then add light-meat turkey and simmer 5 minutes more. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
- Step 7
Serve with steamed white rice and corn tortillas. Cover and refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Very good! There's a bit of work involved -- but the results are really impressive! I served it over small roasted pumpkin quarters, along with some sauteed brussels sprouts.
The paste was initially too soupy. Next time, I will start the paste with just half a cup of broth, then add to consistency.
I had to sub kale for the other greens, and sub dried ancho and chipotle for fresh peppers. I doubled garlic, cumin; added bit of powered cardomom, alspice and coriander. Really good!
Mole is a sauce. Of the seven moles of Oaxaco only three contain chocolate. Negro, Rojo and Coloradito. Mole Verde never contains chocolate.
Hulled! You can hull the seeds from a fresh pumpkin but it's far easier to simply buy the seeds, often called pepitas. You may even find pre-roasted pepitas but beware that these are usually salted. Fresh pepitas will be green while roasted ones will be golden brown.
So I ultimately enjoyed this however I have a few gripes: I doubled the recipe, used 3lbs of turkey and it was still VERY runny and that's with about 50% of the stock used. More cumin. This needs to simmer for way more than 20 minutes. The flavor of the greens is absolutely overwhelming. After about two hours of simmering on the stove the nutty flavor of the seeds really comes out to play. I served this up as tacos with a salsa verde, crema and cotija and they were a hit.
In Step 4, you leave the seed paste in the Dutch oven and remove the pot from the heat. In Step 5, you warm the pot back up and add the purée + turkey to the seed paste as directed.
Worked great. I reckon you could drop the romaine, as others have done, and just use chard. Next time I'll try a couple of roasted poblano peppers instead of jalapeños. I think it would add a richer smokier feel.
Amazing. Wonderful. No Swiss Chard - used Kale instead. Recipe should specify hulled pumpkin seeds. Only added about a 1/3 tsp of salt since our leftover turkey and the box of broth were salty enough. Seeded all but one of the Jalapenos and feel that to have used all 5 with their seeds would have been too spicy for my taste (and I do like spice) . Garnished with sour cream and chopped cilantro. If you don't have any leftover turkey roast one just so you can make this recipe!
This may sound dumb, but are the pumpkin seeds hulled or unhulled?
I'm guessing hulled, right? I was almost going to just throw in one's left over from fixing up pumpkin for pies!
This recipe is amazing. Made it when tomatillos are or of season, so instead I used two jars of Verde salsa and added two jalapenos, 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, and half a onion to the chard-romaine-broth mix...only, I used kale and spinach instead of chard and romaine because...I wanted to. Last, I cooked the turkey in the pressure cooker, did all the other steps, and put everything back in the pressure cooker for 15 min at the end. This is so great!
This was, as my husband put it, "meh." Such a shame as I used tomatillos and jalapenos from my summer garden (frozen and preserved), chard and lettuce fresh harvested from my winter garden, and a pasture raised turkey from our fall CSA. We couldn't have used better ingredients, and yet the flavor was unexciting. I expected more from a 5 star NYT recipe.
I used 1/2 of chicken stock and texture was good. I put the tomatillos, peppers and onions under broiler to get a little smoky flavor. I thought it needed more acid at the end, so I squeezed some lime. My family liked it and didn't complain about the chard since it doesn't have the harsh "green" flavor.
This was a crowd pleaser! Per another reviewer, I added extra spices to taste and let it simmer for about an hour bc after 20 minutes it was still tasting pretty raw. Doubled the recipe and it makes a lot! Will turn it into mole enchiladas for leftovers and frees whatever's left.
This recipe is not good. There is not nearly enough flavor and it’s a ton of work. Tastes like hot green juice.
Another knock-out recipe from Sam Nosrat—love this combination—made the recipe pretty much as is—the paste cooked down in the allotted time perfectly and the flavors really came together. Only thing I will change next time is to try using blanched sesame seeds to see if I can keep more of the bright green color and maybe use 4 jalapeños instead of 3.
Was light on salt I thought.
Wonderful!!
This is oh so incredibly complex and delicious and a textural treat. I made with left over thanksgiving turkey and roasted turkey stock from NYT. Had leftovers(there wasn’t much turkey left) cooked with sautéed boneless skinless chicken thighs. Two delicious meals.
Pretty solid and adaptable. Made as written then later veganized with jackfruit and homemade "chicken" strips. All equally good, though I agree with reducing salt and broth, and instead of romaine I do kale and chard (and/or foraged greens - included mustard greens, nettles, and pacific waterleaf last time). Jarred salsa verde works in a pinch outside of tomatillo season. Tried adapting to Instant Pot once, but got the dreaded burn notice. I usually serve with black beans and cotija.
This is a new family staple. I love this recipe. So green and fantastic flavor. I roast the seeds in the oven at 325 for about 15-20 minutes and blended them in my food processor and then did the rest in my ninja blender. Great with left over turkey. Thank you!
A bit bland. Any ideas for what else to add?
salt, cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips.
I will definitely be making this again. I halved the ingredients except the onion, cooked for closer to 45 minutes and served with a little sour cream. A blender works better for step 5 and I added about half of the sesame pumpkin seed paste when blending. For the turkey, I used dark meat leftovers from a turkey smoked on the grill.
Use pepitas which are hulled pumpkin seeds. Bought roasted unsalted and they worked great
This recipe is amazing. Made it when tomatillos are or of season, so instead I used two jars of Verde salsa and added two jalapenos, 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, and half a onion to the chard-romaine-broth mix...only, I used kale and spinach instead of chard and romaine because...I wanted to. Last, I cooked the turkey in the pressure cooker, did all the other steps, and put everything back in the pressure cooker for 15 min at the end. This is so great!
So flavorful! Busy weekend so...Roasted the seeds in the oven one day and let cool over night then continued the recipe. I didn’t have left over turkey so I quickly cooked chicken thighs in the instant pot with garlic to then shred. Also didn’t have the greens on hand ( and was too busy to go out for some) so added a bit more cilantro and a bit more jalapeño. Used homemade stock and doubled the cumin. Was delicious with rice and spicy caramelized squash, a bit of sour cream, and avocado.
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