Anel Schmidt's Thanksgiving turkey has no stuffing, but it is full of history. "It's drenched in flavors my family has passed down in Cuba for generations," says Schmidt, whose parents fled the country around 1959, when Fidel Castro took power. "When they began celebrating Thanksgiving in America, they automatically used those seasonings for the turkey. I've never known turkey any other way." That's a good thing, because the first-time food contestant took top honors--and the $10,000 grand prize--in America's Top Recipe Contest 2006 for her mother's holiday bird.
Schmidt, 35, who lives in Phoenix with husband Daniel, a real estate trainer and supervisor, daughter Ariela, 9, and son Daniel, 2, read about the contest on Allrecipes.com. She named the dish Turkey Mercedes after her mother, who died when Schmidt was 19. "I thought if I named it after her and I won, it would be a great way to have her memory and her name somewhere lasting," Schmidt says.
When it came time to cook her first turkey, Schmidt asked her stepdad for her mother's recipe. "He told me the seasonings she used, but he didn't know the amounts or how she did it," she says. "I had to put two and two together, using what my grandmother taught me about Cuban cooking. But I don't have time for the mortar and pestle and all that, so I do it the quick way. I use a juicer for the lemons, use orange juice concentrate and throw it all in the blender with the seasonings--and voilà, we've got our turkey."
The judges were smitten with the Cuban-accented bird, which won in the "holiday family favorites" category. "What pushed Turkey Mercedes to the top was that it combined great flavor and succulence with attractive presentation, and, to me, represented a creative, meaningful take on a traditional American holiday favorite," says Allrecipes.com food editor Carl Hanson. USA Weekend's Pam Anderson admits she was surprised when she tasted it. "I read the recipe, and I really didn't think it looked extraordinary," she says. "But with all the garlic, lemon juice, oregano, cumin and the orange juice to make it stick together, I thought, 'Wow, I sure would like to eat that on Thanksgiving!' "
For side dishes, Schmidt keeps it traditionally Cuban: rice ("it's to Cubans like potatoes are to Americans") topped with soupy black beans, chicken croquettes and boiled yucca. "That's what I grew up with, and now the smells alone take me back," she says. "I want my kids to have those memories, too."
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