Epicurious Pastrami Turkey

Doesn’t quite look like pastrami, but still looks good.

I’m no pastrami expert, so I won’t try to compare this to the real thing.

Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes plus brine and rest time

Ingredient Availability: 5/5 (at least during holiday time)

Difficulty: 1/5

This is what I decided to make my turkey dish for thanksgiving this year. In years past I’ve done a full roasted turkey, turkey confit, and fried turkey wings. Both were good, but maybe took a little more time or effort than I felt like giving this year. Turkey breast is probably the least liked part of the turkey, but it’s usually because it’s overcooked when made with the rest of the turkey. I was thinking that If I just made the breast and cooked it well, I would have something tasty, relatively quick, and easy. Let’s see how that idea played out.

Key Ingredients & Omissions:

This breast is easy to find during the holidays, I’m list sure about it’s availability otherwise

Nothing was left out of this recipe and I don’t think there’s anything you really could or should leave out. The seasonings are pretty simple and that’s kinda what makes the whole thing. The recipe has ingredients to make it into sandwiches, but you obviously can skip those.

Tools:

• Bowl to fit your turkey breast in

• Oven safe pan

Cooking Review:

Brine: 17 minutes

A day before I planned to cook the turkey, I seasoned it and put it in a bowl to chill in the refrigerator over night. The turkey breast I had actually came in two pieces, which surprised me, but it didn’t really get in the way of anything. The recipe says to use all of the seasoning, which is exactly what I did.

Searing and Roasting: 1 hour and 8 minutes

After almost 20 hours or brining, I added the turkey to a hot pan with olive oil to sear it on each side. Once each side had been sufficiently browned, I immediately transferred the cast iron pan to the oven to bake for an hour. At this point, the breast had registered about 160 degrees Fahrenheit. I then transferred the turkey to a cooling rack to rest until the rest of my holiday meal was ready.

Analysis:

My idea turned out to be correct. This turkey was pretty good. I didn't miss anything that I had from the previous thanksgiving turkey dishes I had, as this one was tender, juicy, and flavorful. Despite all of the seasoning being on the outside, the brine did it’s job, helping distribute some flavor inside the turkey as well. Given how much simpler and less time consuming this turkey is, I was very happy with the result. Of course the best of the flavor is on the outside and on the more well seared parts, but when sliced, you get a little bit of that in almost every bite. This recipe gets a 9/10 from me. The flavors could be a little more complex and interesting, which would have made this perfect. Besides that, there’s not much I could complain about.