<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">A couple of questions....that rolled turkey breasts looks so good that I'd like to give it a try...did you pound then brine or the other way around? What temp oven and for how long? What was the weight of the breast halves?
Thanks
Don </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I basically used my best guesses throughout the recipe and pretty much winged the whole thing. I'm sure I took some notes but they're irrelevant because some changes probably wouldn't hurt much.
I started with fairly small turkey's, I'm going to guess approximately 9#. After removing the breast, I cut into the "tenderloin" and flipped it out. To finish the square shape, butterflied the thickest part and flipped that out. I didn't bother looking for instructions on how to do this and was rather impressed by how easy it was to get a rough rectangle out of a breast. One note, I recommend trying to remove as much skin intact from the whole bird, it takes a bit of skin to get it around the finished roll (or should I say ballotine). I pounded the breasts as best as I could but found it difficult to get the thin enough to get the roulade that I was originally looking for. After pounding, I laid the breast in a basic brine for a couple of hours. I figured the pounding might help the brine work into the meat.
as far a stuffing goes, I used a lot less than I had anticipated. I'd recommend limiting the amount of bread or fillers and stick to concentrated fruits and nuts. The bread seemed to dominate, despite being less than half of the mix, and since the stuffing per slice is limited, I felt it needed to be less bready.
Looking back on the process, I think the building of the ballotine went well. The size of the roll, and the thickness of the meat worked out well. I'd be interested to see how a bigger breast would work, and maybe a second butterfly to get the whole slab even thinner to get a roulade.
The cooking took longer than I had anticipated (40 min? 350?), since I had to brown two (one at a time) and then finish in the oven. I might recommend tossing some stock in the pan so they braise. It seems like a popular method I've read about in the days since making it. I didn't have a wired probe therm, but that's probably the way to go, so you can pull them as soon as they are done and let them rest while you make a pan sauce. One downside of this method: you need to get the stuffing to pasteurization temp, which might lead to overdone meat (luckily you brined...right?). I made the rolls about 48 hours in advance and transported them on ice for about 6 hours, so I was really focused on killing bugs. Unfortunately I ran out of time, the meat was good at 160's but the stuffing was maybe 140's and for not that long. No body got sick so my reputation is still in tact. This is probably a good reason to limit the size of the roll or make sure the stuffing is cooked prior and the ballotine is constructed shortly before cooking.
If I were to redo the cook: brown longer in pan (allow for more time), add stock to pan, and have a wired probe therm. additionally, I might do some reading up to see if pre-cooking the stuffing is typical. Oh, and something else to think about is
meat glue (don't laugh, sure its used in mc nuggets, but I've also seen some really elegant things assemble with it).
