How to Roast a Whole Turkey Breast (from Cooks Illustrated)

[Note from KC - although this refers to oven roasting, it can easily be converted to smoker use - just use two chimneys of hot coals to keep up the hot temps]

For flavorful, juicy meat and rich, crisp skin, brine the breast, loosen its skin, and roast it on high, then moderately low heat.

The challenge: Even for those who love turkey, roasting a whole bird is often more than people want to take on. Roasting a breast is a more manageable undertaking. The problem with breast meat is its tendency to be dry and flavorless. It can also be a challenge to get the breast to develop a crisp, golden brown skin. We wanted to develop a technique that would give us both moist, flavorful meat and tasty, crispy skin.

The solution: As proponents of brining poultry to boost flavor and moisture, our first thought was to brine the turkey, which involves soaking the bird in a solution of salted or salted and sugared water for a given length of time (spices and herbs can be added, too). We tried both the salt-only and the salt/sugar combination and favored the latter.

The next part of getting the meat right was determining the roasting time and temperature. We discovered that slow roasting at 325 degrees did the most to produce tender meat with just a trace of chew. The problem with slow roasting a turkey breast is that it does nothing for the skin; the skin on our turkey breast was pale and rubbery. Boosting the heat to 450 degrees for the first 30 minutes of roasting helped to brown and crisp the skin, but not evenly. Brushing the skin with butter helped, but we still weren’t all the way there yet.

We noticed that the crispiest part of the skin was where the skin had touched no meat—a small section that stretches across the two halves of the breast. We wondered if we could get the same effect all over the breast by releasing all of the skin from the meat. The answer was yes. A bit of finesse was required to accomplish this, but the beautifully browned and crisped bird that emerged from the oven was well worth it.

ROAST BRINED TURKEY BREAST WITH CRISP SKIN

Serves 6 to 8

If you are unable to purchase a turkey breast without a pop-up timer, leave it in place and ignore it. If removed, the timer will leave a gaping hole for juices to escape during roasting. If making an accompanying pan gravy, you may want to throw some carrots, celery, onions, and garlic in the roasting pan and refer to “Make-Ahead Pan Gravy.”

1 1/2 cups kosher salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 6- to 8-pound fresh, whole, bone-in, skin-on turkey breast, rinsed and prepared according to illustrations in Preparing a Turkey Breast for Roasting.
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, 3 tablespoons at room temperature, 1 tablespoon melted
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock (optional)

1. Mix salt and sugar in 1 1/2 gallons cool water in large clean bucket or stockpot until completely dissolved. Set turkey breast in brine, making sure it is submerged. Cover and refrigerate 5 hours.

2 . Twenty minutes before roasting, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix room-temperature butter with pepper in small bowl. Set aside.

3. Remove turkey breast from brine and pat dry. Prepare breast for roasting, following Preparing a Turkey Breast for Roasting.

4. Place turkey breast in oven, wide neck end toward oven rear. Pour 1/2 cup water or optional white wine or stock over pan bottom to prevent drippings from burning. Roast 15 minutes, then rotate roasting pan. Roast until skin turns golden, 15 minutes longer. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees; continue to roast breast, rotating pan once, about halfway through cooking until internal temperature in deepest part of breast registers 160 to 165 degrees (depending on preference), 30 to 45 minutes longer.

5. Remove turkey breast from oven. Let stand 20 minutes. Carve and serve.


From http://www.cooksillustrated.com/article.asp?did=4054

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chris Allingham,

That worked out pretty good! Thanks Keri

Thanks for the QC...

I'm sorry, but I deleted the accompanying post showing the turkey breast prep steps. It contained images that were served from Cook Illustrated's server, which constitutes bandwidth theft.

Regards,
Chris

Didn't know that. Sorry...

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... which constitutes bandwidth theft ...

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not to mention a possible form of copyright infringement in this case ...
Chris if you're watching this thread, do you have some guidelines for us about posting 'published' recipes such as from cookbooks?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shawn W,

The official stance from the Terms of Service page:

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By using this service, you agree that you will not:

Post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this message board.

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My understanding is that under U.S. copyright law, a list of recipe ingredients cannot be copyrighted, but the descriptive text surrounding the list of ingredients can make the recipe subject to copyright.

So strictly speaking, folks on this BB, including me, should not be copying/pasting recipes in their entirety from books, magazines, or Web sites.

I am particularly sensitive to the issue of bandwidth theft, because it is perpetrated on TVWB all the time. When I look at my Web stats, I see people all over the world linking to the photos on my Web server for their own purposes, which costs me money. I sometimes rename the files to foil the theft, but it's a continuing battle.

Regards,
Chris

quote:

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... a list of recipe ingredients cannot be copyrighted, but the descriptive text surrounding the list of ingredients can make the recipe subject to copyright ...

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In addition to listing the ingrediants can we describe in our OWN words how we put it all together if that is conceptually different from the original version?

If we do list some ingrediants from a published recipe in a post should we quote the source? If so how? Title, Author, ISBN, website??

Yes, you should attribute the recipe to the source or author. You can certainly describe in your own words how you followed the recipe, or how you tweaked it or varied from it.

Regards,
Chris

To get back to the recipe itself and not the very important issues of bandwidth theft and copyright infringement, how do you get the wsm up to 450 for the first 30 minutes? In the recipe on the VWB site the temperature stays constant at 325. Will the skin not be crisp using this method? Looks good in the photos. Planning on cooking this tomorrow and it would be great if I could get a clarification. Thanks and happy holiday.

David,

I know you were planning on cooking this last Monday but for future reference here's how I get my WSM up to 450 at least for the first little bit (after about 30-45 minutes it usually settles down to 375 for a while and then 350):

start with two fully-lit chimneys of charcoal. If you only have one chimney, dump most of it and leave a few lit coals on the bottom to start the next batch. Meanwhile put the WSM together and let it pre-heat a bit.

You don't have to wait for the next batch to get completely greyed over. Just make sure it's fully lit, and the coals on top are gray around the edges. Dump on top of the already lit charcoal you have from the first chimney. You'll probably need to "hot squat" to get a good pouring angle, unless you feel comfy putting it in through the door. I don't.

Then, make sure all the vents are open. Some folks like to prop the door open here for extra air-flow but I prefer to offset the lid by a quarter inch or a half inch or so..

That oughtta get you to 400+ for a while.

Dave