A Real Turkey

Posted by Brette in Food

turk breast

The header is not a comment on all the dads out there! Happy Father’s Day! Today we’re celebrating with my dad. I went totally Martha and printed a bunch of old photos (one is of my mom and dad before they were married – Mom is in shorts and knee socks, Dad is holding a cigarette and they are standing in front of my mom’s convertible!) and framed them for him for a photo wall he is creating. On to the blog—

Since I’ve committed to cooking much less red meat, we’ve been eating lots of chicken and fish. And I do get a little tired of it. So, the idea of grilling a turkey breast sounded like a nice change. Brined Slow-Cooked Turkey Breast (Martha Stewart Everyday Food, July) was a weeknight meal for us. I bought half of a turkey breast. The recipe says to brine it for 6-8 hours in salt, brown sugar and water. I ended up getting this in the brine the night before and I’m afraid it ended up being too long of a brine, but there was just no way I could find time to brine in the morning craziness that happens here.

The recipe says to grill the turkey over indirect heat. We have a gas grill, so this meant turning only one burner on and putting the turkey on the other half of the grill. It took my half turkey breast about an hour and 10 minutes to cook.

It turned out nicely browned. Unfortunately though, this was so tough we almost could not eat it. I suspect the fact that I brined it for about 20 hours may have been the problem. When I made this, I anticipated there being leftovers I could make sandwiches with the next day, but this was so tough, I had to throw it out. As for flavor, it tasted ok. It wasn’t anything to stand up and shout about. In general I find turkey to be pretty bland and just plain by itself it’s never anything great. It needs seasonings or a gravy or a sauce to make it good. This was a total bust. And it definitely was not worth an entire hour of propane!

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The header is not a comment on all the dads out there! Happy Father’s Day! Today we’re celebrating with my dad. I went totally Martha and printed a bunch of old photos (one is of my mom and dad before they were married – Mom is in shorts and knee socks, Dad is holding a … Read more

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