Turkey Breast Preparation
*Fresh Turkey Breast or **Frozen Turkey Breast
*1 cup Table Salt, dissolve in 8 cups warm water
*8 cups cold water, more or less as needed
*8 cups cubed Ice, more or less as needed
*Plastic Container with lid to hold Turkey Breast and will fit in your fridge
**Frozen Turkey Breast will need to be purchased early and allowed to thaw in its original packaging in the refrigerator in Stainless Steel Pan/Glass/Plastic to catch the juices from thawing. Our frozen turkey was almost 8.5 pounds, we bought it about 3 days before we wanted to prepare the turkey in the brine.
After your turkey Beast has thawed in fridge in its original package, remove turkey from package along with the Gravy Packet and refrigerate Gravy packet until ready to make the gravy.
Prepare the Brine:
*In clean plastic container used only for handling food, place your turkey inside the plastic container adding the above ingredients in order they are listed. Put the lid on container and place in the refrigerator 6 hours or overnight.
Remove the turkey container from the fridge when you are ready to prepare your turkey for roasting. Pour off the brine into the sink and add fresh clean water to the container with turkey to rinse it off. Then pour off the fresh water and pat the turkey dry with Paper Towels.
Seasoning and stuffing consisting of:
Quarter cut the following for stuffing which adds moisture and flavor to your Turkey Breast
*Lemon
*Apple
*small Orange, or you can just use the rind
*Onion
*2 sprigs Fresh Rosemary
Place the above ingredients to the cavity of the turkey breast, more or less of these ingredients depending on the size of your Turkey Breast Cavity.
Using Oven Safe TurkeyBag:
(If you choose not to use the oven bag, Season/Rub your turkey with the below seasonings and follow the **crock pot browning step below for browning your turkey and after browning cover with aluminum foil and finish roasting at 325*F. Until internal temperature of your turkey is 165* F.)
*Oven Roasting Turkey Bag
In the oven roasting bag place and prepare turkey and add the following mirepoix around the turkey at the bottom of the bag:
*Celery, chopped
*Onion, quartered
*Lemon, quartered
*Apple, quartered
Butter Shortening Rub/Seasonings:
Mix in a bowl Seasonings for Rub:
*Fresh Rosemary Leaves or dried
*Grated Orange Peel, optional
*1-2 Teaspoons Poultry Seasonings of your Choice
*any other seasonings of your choice
* Butter Flavored Shortening for rubbing all over your turkey skin and do this before rubbing on the above seasonings. Make sure you have patted the skin dry with paper towels so the Butter Flavored Shortening will stick to the skin.
Place your prepared bagged turkey breast in a good Roasting Pan.
Use a oven safe meat thermometer to test when turkey is done.
Turkey Crock Pot Style and Browning:
*Follow the below if using your Crock Pot and if you choose to brown your oven roasted turkey.
Browning Turkey Breast for Crock Pot
**(Brown the turkey breast in a opened turkey bag on a roasting pan in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes to brown in a 500*F. oven. After browning, close up the turkey bag with tie that comes with the bag. Then turn down to 325* F. and continue to roast only if you are going to bake in oven. You can skip this browning step for the oven roasted Turkey Breast. But I like to brown the top when using the below Crock Pot Style of cooking the turkey breast.)
**Turkey Breast Crock Pot Style
Prepare the turkey breast the same as above but instead of roasting in the oven you will use the oven safe bag but will it will be a liner for your crock pot.
***Note I still like to brown the turkey breast in the oven as explained above even when using the crock pot. Remove browned turkey from the oven in roasting pan still in the oven bag and using hot pads to move bagged turkey breast to your crock pot. Do not try to carry the turkey by the top of the bag; you might need two people for this step to hold the top of the bag and on to the turkey itself to get it into the crock pot. Be careful not to damage the bag or let hot juices come out to burn you!!
Turkey breast cooked in crock pot will take about 7-9 hours.
Cooking time for your turkey breast will vary depending on the size of your turkey breast. Check your package for a good estimate for when your turkey breast will be done and it is a good idea to have some sort of meat thermometer. Insert the meat thermometer in the thickest part of the breast. Roast turkey until the internal temperature is 165* F this is the standard temperature for when your turkey breast will be done. We cooked ours until the internal temperature was 163*F. (The turkey breast will continue to cook a few degrees after removing from the oven.)
Carefully remove turkey from the oven and let the turkey breast rest about 30 minutes covered with some Foil before carving. This helps to put moisture back into the turkey.
I hope the following pictures help in explaining the above turkey process.
See below to make the Gravy.
Browned Crock Pot Style Turkey read to be cooked for 7-9 hours in crock pot.
Browned Oven Roasted Turkey in bag ready to be closed and continue roasting at 325* F.
Turkey Gravy
Mix together
*Drippings from the Turkey, removing fat from the juices
*Gravy Packet
For thickening:
*Approximately 1/2 cup Drippings/juices using the from above, cooled
*Approximately 1/3 cup Flour
Whisk thickening together and slowly add to the drippings/Juices, simmering until desired thickness. We then used an emulsion blender to make it smooth. Salt and Pepper to taste.
Happy Cooking!
Lindy
