Turkey Talk: $15,000 scholarship for leftovers recipe

For those of you that are aware of my pending culinary school application, I need to raise substantial amounts of money i.e scholarships and financial aid. Being me, I chose the Harvard of culinary schools the CIA, which is not cheap.

They have an annual "Top Turkey Scholarship". It didn't cross my mind to enter, until I actually thought about some of the prizes totaling $15,000. The competition is only open to incoming freshman, so a couple of thousand people? How many actually enter? I felt good about my odds. Then there is the problem with an original recipe.

My favorite leftovers on Friday are a plate of whatever is left from Thursday. Not very original, I know! So, I put my eating cap on and got down to business. I tried to isolate the elements of the Thanksgiving dinner that I would want to relive the next day, next week, next month... and I came to turkey, cranberry sauce and gravy. These elements are things that I found myself craving even before the fourth Thursday in November. I also, wanted the recipe to have some degree of difficulty, but not distract from the flavors of the leftovers.

So, what I came up with is turkey, cranberry ravioli's with gravy sauce.

Serves 4

1 favorite pasta dough recipe

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 lg. or 2 md. shallots, finely chopped

1 tbsp dry sherry

1 ½ cups of chopped turkey meat, white and dark

1 ? 2 egg yokes

Salt and fresh pepper

½ cup of cranberry sauce, you can adjust the amount to suit your taste

1 cup of turkey gravy

Chicken Stock

Sage leaves (optional)

Fresh cranberries (optional)

Add butter to a skillet over medium high heat, melt butter and then add shallots. Let the shallots soften for about 2 minutes, then add sherry, let shallots absorb the sherry. Add turkey meat to the shallot mixture and cook till the chill is out of the turkey meat about less than 2 minutes. Place turkey shallot mixture in a bowl, if the pieces are large, put on a cutting board and chop till the mixture is fine. Add egg to mixture and incorporate well, season with salt and pepper, stir in cranberry sauce to taste.

Fill raviolis with the mixture and place in a pot of boiling chicken stock or water or both. The stock will give the raviolis more flavors. Be sure to salt the water properly. Boil for about 5 minutes till the raviolis float to the top. Serve with left over gravy, if the gravy is thick, thin it with some more chicken stock and some cranberry sauce.

I also made a video, which was not selected as a finalist, I am not really surprised as I threw this entire thing together in a few hours and I am still and nervous through out the entire video. Please check it out I took the trouble to make it, someone should see it. Let me know what you think. Not just of the recipe, but the video too!