Savory Slow Roasted Turkey Breast

Savory Slow Roasted Turkey Breast

It’s been a few months since Thanksgiving, and I’m finally over the turkey fatigue. I actually really like cooking turkey year round. It’s inexpensive, packed with protein and, if cooked correctly, absolutely delicious.

Years ago I read famed food critic Jeffrey Steingarten’s book of essays The Man Who Ate Everything – one of the most personable, witty pieces of food writing I’ve ever read. In my favorite essay in the book, Steingarten writes about trying to adhere to the US Department of Agriculture’s plan for thrifty eating, an index it once used to determine how many food stamps were provided to poor families. The diet sounded miserable, and Steingarten quit it on day 5.

The only useful (rather than dryly fun) thing I remember about the essay was that according to the USDA, turkey is the least expensive form of protein out there. After too many weird turkey meals like Potato Salad with Turkey and Turkey Spanish Rice, Steingarten probably never ate turkey again, but I tucked this $ info away for a rainy day – like last Sunday.

I learned the technique used in this recipe from Andrew Schloss’s standout cookbook, Cooking Slow – one of the best cookbooks of 2014.  Pick it up, and I promise it will change the way you cook turkey forever.  Dry brine your turkey breast and let it sit in the refrigerator over night uncovered. This dries out the skin so that it turns out especially crispy, and more important, keeps the moisture of the turkey inside, where it belongs.  The turkey is roasted over high heat for 15 minutes and then slow roasted for 8 hours at 170 degrees. Because the temperature of the oven settles at around 175 – the right temp for a fully cooked turkey – it’s almost impossible to overcook it.

The result is perfectly cooked, tender, moist turkey meat. I flavored my turkey breast with a paste made of mustard seed, garlic, fresh herbs, lemon juice and olive oil before roasting it. I prefer not to grind up the mustard seeds because they soften during 8 hours of cooking without completely losing their texture.

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Savory Slow Roasted Turkey Breast

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

8 hours 15 mins

Total time

8 hours 45 mins

 

Author: three beans on a string

Serves: 8 servings

Ingredients

• 3 Tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 Tablespoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 whole bone-in turkey breast, 6-7 pounds
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons whole mustard seeds
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Juice from half a lemon
• 2 large onions

Instructions

1. The night before you plan to cook the turkey breast, rub the kosher salt and black pepper all over the turkey. Refrigerate the turkey uncovered overnight, allowing the skin to dry out.
2. The next day, remove the turkey from the refrigerator 30 minutes before roasting. Make a paste with the garlic, mustard seeds, rosemary, sage, olive oil and lemon juice. Lift up the turkey skin and rub half of the paste directly onto the meat. Rub the rest of the paste onto the turkey skin.
3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
4. Peel the onions and cut them each into 8 pieces. In a roasting pan, arrange the onions in the shape of an oval, packing the onions close together to make a bed for the turkey breast. Place the turkey breast bone side down onto the onions.
5. Place the roasting pan into the 450 degree oven and roast for 15 minutes. Turn the oven down to 175 degrees and roast until the thickest part of the meat comes to 170 degrees, about 8 hours.
6. Remove the turkey from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving.

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About the Photograph

Would you believe the pretty blue platter in this photograph is made out of plastic? I picked it out the sale bin at Target, along with another plastic treasure, a royal blue plate I used in this shot of Slow Roasted Chicken Legs with Sun Dried Tomatoes.  I was surprised by how much I like the saturated color and the shimmer of both of my plastic pieces.

I took these photos with my  Nikon D80, using a 28mm f2.8 NIKKOR wide angle lens. I used a Lowell Ego tabletop light like this one, at around 8 p.m., in total darkness (with all other indoor lights turned off). The light was positioned to the right and slightly in front of the food. I did not use a reflector.  My ISO was set at 640, and the shutter speed was 1/ 200. The aperture was f/3.5.