How to turn leftover turkey into delicious, Chinese-style pancakes – recipe

Our daughter’s favourite meals are usually interactive. For example, we make summer rolls, tacos, sushi and these crispy turkey pancakes at the table, laying out all the various ingredients for us to construct our own wraps from whatever we fancy. Leftover scraps of roast meat go a very long way when mixed with other ingredients in a wrap.

Crispy turkey pancakes with hoisin sauce

This is a super-quick way to upcycle even a small amount of leftover roast meat into a special last-minute meal. If you don’t have hoisin sauce in the cupboard, it’s possible you might have the ingredients to make your own – garlic, soy sauce, sweetener, vinegar, chilli of some sort and a blob of tahini or peanut butter are all you need to make it.

Hoisin is incredibly delicious even without any other spices, but five spice, black bean sauce and the like will elevate it to a whole new level. We didn’t have any five-spice, but we did have a few of the spices that go into it, so I added a teaspoon in total of those (Chinese five-spice commonly includes cinnamon, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves and Sichuan peppercorns, so use whichever of those you have.)

I really like the neutral flavour of Chinese-style pancakes, because it makes them a great carrier for other intense flavours, but if you can’t find them, regular wheat tortillas will work here instead.

Serves 4

For the hoisin sauce (optional; or use shop-bought)
1 tbsp vegetable oil, or sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp black bean paste, or more soy sauce
3 tbsp sweetener – honey, sugar or molasses
3 tbsp vinegar – rice, white wine or cider vinegar
1 tbsp tahini, or smooth peanut butter
2 tsp sriracha, or gochujang or chilli flakes
½ tsp Chinese five-spice powder

For the pancakes
300g cooked turkey, or chicken, shredded
1 tbsp vegetable oil, or sesame oil
4 tbsp hoisin sauce, plus extra to serve (see above and method)
12 Chinese-style pancakes
100g cucumber, cut into matchsticks
3 spring onions, trimmed and cut into matchsticks

To make your own hoisin sauce, heat the oil in a frying pan, then gently fry the garlic until it begins to turn light brown. Stir in the soy sauce, sweetener, vinegar, tahini and sriracha, then add the black bean paste and the five-spice. Bring to a boil, simmer for three minutes, then season to taste and leave to cool. Store in a clean jar in the fridge for up to a month.

Now for the turkey. Put the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, add the shredded roast turkey and leave to cook without stirring until it’s crisp underneath. Break up the meat, stir in three to four tablespoons of hoisin sauce to coat it evenly, and cook for another minute.

Lay the table with a platter of the crispy turkey, 12 steamed Chinese-style pancakes (or small tortillas), a bowl each of cucumber and spring onions, and the hoisin sauce. To assemble a pancake, spread a little hoisin sauce on one side, top with some turkey, cucumber and spring onion, then fold or roll and tuck in.