Every week -- often with your help -- Food52's Executive Editor Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that are nothing short of genius.
Today: A just-crazy-enough-to-work technique for outsmarting dry turkey.
There are lots of sensible reasons to cook a turkey breast instead of a whole bird. Maybe you want to be freed from the commitment of a larger roast -- because your table is smaller, or you find the leftovers oppressive. Maybe you just want to do something unexpected this year. Or maybe you want to start DIYing the best turkey sandwiches ever -- to have better desk lunches than your cube-mate's, and provide more for your kids than the sad cold cuts you grew up with.
But with the crowd-pleasing crutch of dark meat gone, serving just a turkey breast feels risky, unimpressive, joyless. This is where we can turn to Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi of Torrisi's Italian Specialties, who developed the impossible: a juicy, delicious, foolproof, sexy Thanksgiving turkey breast.
To get it, you have to do some pretty strange and unglamorous things to your turkey. First you submerge it in a basic wet brine (water with salt and sugar dissolved in it) overnight, which is unsightly in a Mütter Museum kind of way, but we're used to that. After this it gets really bizarre.
You dredge it up and mummify it in four layers of plastic wrap, then another of foil. Then you lodge a thermometer in it and roast it all, wrapped up like a big potato, at a temperature normally used to make fruit leather.
A few hours later, the internal temperature hits 135° F, well below the point you thought a cooked turkey should be, and you plunge it in an ice bath for 5 minutes. But the internal temperature will continue to climb, despite the shock. Then you'll peel off all the protective outerwear, paint it all over with a roasted garlic and honey paste, and crisp up the outside in a now-much-hotter oven.
More: A genius technique for the whole bird from Russ Parsons and Judy Rodgers.
Our photographer Mark Weinberg compared all of this to an elaborate spa treatment, and he's not far off. (Once, on my birthday, I was actually wrapped in plastic wrap too.)
What these great lengths mean is that you won't dry out the edges waiting for the middle to cook through, and that literally none of the turkey's juices are squandered. I tested this recipe a few times and there were never drippings from the turkey in the pan. That's a good thing! If you want gravy, there are other ways -- make a vegetarian mushroom version, or buy some extra bits to make your gravy with (you can even make it ahead).
The Torrisi technique might seem complicated, but you'll notice the recipe is actually quite short. The brine and the glaze are each just a couple ingredients. And when you don't have to wrangle a funny-shaped bird, with its uneven limbs, its 2 speeds of meat, you can control the whole process a lot better.
If you feel weird about cooking in plastic wrap, here's why you shouldn't, if you buy the good stuff. If you feel weird about pulling the turkey at 135° F, don't forget the second stage of high-temperature roasting, in which the thermometer will keep inching up. Even if it doesn't quite hit 165° F, here's why that's okay (150° F+ for 10 minutes is just as good). Of course, if you want to be extra safe, you can bring it up to 165° F -- thanks to the slow-building temperature and the effects of the brine, this roast is also really hard to overcook.
Admittedly, there are a lot of oven temps to work around -- here's how to actually pull it off on your oven's busiest day of the year: Make the glaze the night (or a few nights) before. Start the roast a bit earlier than you think you need to, and just tent it with foil if it comes out early -- it will hold its internal temperature for a good while (and it can be served hot, warm, or even cold).
At Parm, Torrisi's sister restaurant, the turkey is served on sandwiches with spicy sauce. You'll carve it for dinner on Thanksgiving day, then use it to make turkey sandwiches and hash and soup. But, unlike years past, you won't have an insurmountable pile, and you won't need to bury it in cranberry sauce to get through it.
Adapted from Torrisi Italian Specialties in New York, NY via The New York Times.
Serves 12
For brining the turkey:
1 cup kosher salt
1 cup sugar
2 boneless turkey breasts, 3 to 4 1/2 pounds each
For the glaze:
8 heads garlic, lightly smashed but intact
4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup honey
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
See the full recipe (and save it and print it) here.
Got a genius recipe to share -- from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected]. Thanks to Nozlee Samadzadeh and Kenzi Wilbur for this one!
Photos by Mark Weinberg
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Written by: Kristen Miglore
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55 Comments
All the chemicals from the wrap will penetrate your food! Bon appetit!😂😂😂😡😡😡
First time through, both 2.5-pound breasts were in for 4 hours and the internal temp was nowhere near 165. Given how slow the roasting was going, I knew it would be foolish to remove and shock the meat at 135, as NO WAY would it reach 165 with 20 minutes of high-temp roasting. While the breasts were still wrapped, I eased the oven temp up to 300 and then 350 to get the meat cooked. As soon as the thermometer hit 165, I shocked the meat for about 30 seconds - just so I could handle it - unwrapped, glazed, roasted at 425 for 20 minutes and carved immediately. Cardinal sin not to let the meat rest, I know, but I had hungry guests who thought the meal would hit the table at 4.30 at the latest, and here it was 5.45.
Second time through, I did two 2-pound breasts and those took exactly 4 hours 45 minutes to hit 165. I followed the rest of the recipe exactly.
Both times, the meat was tender and juicy. My husband said it was the moistest turkey breast he’d ever had. The first-attempt meat suffered from my not letting it rest, as the turkey carved right away was fine, but my leftovers were a little dry. Second try, meat was perfect both for serving and for leftovers.
I did not do the wet brine at all but salted the meat lightly the night before. And the honey-garlic glaze is tasty but a little sweet; next time I’ll search for a less-sweet glaze or reduce the amount of honey.
One note, I don’t know how the original recipe writer got the meat temperature to climb during the ice bath; this was not at all my experience. My first attempt, the temp fell 5-10 degrees; the second time, it stayed at 165. The stable or falling temperature is the main reason I did not seriously think about taking out the turkey when the internal temperature was still 30 degrees below safe/cooked.
Turkey breast in a slow cooker/crock pot is fabulously moist and much easier.
You can always take it out at 130 and follow the recipe from there...
If I brined the breast, I wouldn't add any water.
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