Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Mahogany Turkey Breast with Vegetable Gravy

I know it's too late for your Thanksgiving meals for this year, but I heartily recommend this recipe - it's what we'll be having tomorrow. (So, you know, posting this is a good way to review the recipe & see how long I'm going to need to make it.) I made it a few weeks ago with a smaller turkey breast (and a few substitutions when I thought I had stuff I didn't) and the gravy was AMAZING. It's from the Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2002 cookbook.

2 c. thinly sliced onion [2 medium]
1 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
Cooking spray
2 Tbl. low-sodium soy sauce, divided [or regular]
1 (14 1/2 oz.) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth, divided [I use "Better than Bouillon" and make about that much.]
1 (5- to 6- lb.) bone-in turkey breast
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. dry sherry or Madeira [subbed in white wine]
2 Tbl. molasses [which I didn't have but I thought I did, so I subbed 1 Tbl. real maple syrup & 1 Tbl. honey]
1 Tbl. all-purpose flour

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Combine onion, carrot, and celery in a roasting pan coated with cooking spray. Add 1 Tbl. soy sauce and 2/3 c. broth; stir to coat. Place turkey breast, skin side up, on vegetables. Sprinkle with pepper and salt. Insert meat thermometer into turkey breast, making sure it does not touch bone. [I didn't do the thermometer in the whole time - just checked it when I thought it would be done.] Bake at 350F for 1 hour; baste turkey with 2 Tbl. broth every 30 minutes. [Who would actually measure this? Not me!]
  3. Combine 2 Tbl. soy sauce, sherry, and molasses. Bake turkey an additional 45 minutes or until thermometer registers 180F, brushing with sherry mixture every 15 minutes. Place turkey on a platter. Cover turkey loosely with foil; let stand 15 minutes. Do not discard drippings.
  4. Combine remaining chicken broth and flour, stirring with a whisk until well-blended to form a slurry. Drain onion mixture and drippings into a colander over a bowl, reserving both. Place a zip-loc bag inside a 2-cup glass measuring cup or bowl. Pour drippings into bag; let stand 10 minutes (fat will rise to top). Seal bag; carefully snip off 1 bottom corner of bag. Drain drippings into a medium saucepan, stopping before fat layer reaches opening; discard fat*.
  5. Add reserved onion mixture to pan [I did this the first time I made it but didn't like the chunky veg in the gravy, so now I don't put do that anymore. So I just put the with-fat drippings and slurry in the pan together, without the onion mixture.]; stir in slurry. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.
  6. Serve turkey with gravy. Yum!!!


*I didn't do this fat reduction step, but you could if you wanted to.

1 comment:

Ms. Huis Herself said...

Ok, I made this tonight, but instead of celery and onions, I used leeks. Why? Because I didn't have any celery, but I did have some teeny, tiny, almost-green-onion-sized leeks from our CSA. And I did the maple-syrup-and-honey instead of molasses.

And the gravy was OUTSTANDING. And I wished there were more leeks because they were so yummy!!! Oh, I'm so making this for Christmas when the in-laws come!