Brined Turkey Breast By Pongousa I Made It

Brined Turkey Breast by PongoUSA

chuckieb 11 years ago
I made
Brined Turkey Breast
for dinner last night. It was amazing. I'm a relative newbie to brining but I'm becoming a huge fan.
I don't think that I have ever seen a 7 lb. turkey breast in the stores here in Ottawa. I bought the biggest one I could find but I'd be surprised if it were more than 2 lbs. I made up the brine the morning before (smelled wonderful). This was the first time in my entire life I'd ever cooked with a fennel bulb. My son, the vegetarian, didn't even know what it was. :) And I also have not used juniper or allspice berries or even dried chiles a whole lot, so this was a lot of fun for me.
I have to admit to just taking a cursory look at the ingredient list initially and when it came to roasting the turkey breast on a bed of sage and thyme sprigs I realized I hadn't noticed the 'sprig' part and sprinkling dried sage and thyme on a rack is basically a futile operation. :) So I just grabbed some of the sliced fennel and onions from the brining mixture and placed those on the rack and then placed the breast on top of that. Seemed to work out just fine and there was certainly no lack of flavour.
Browned the breast up in the 450F oven and then turned the heat down to 300F. My meat thermometer said the 'cooked' Poultry temperature should be 185F. The recipe said to pull the turkey breast out and tent it when the temp got to 150F. I should have listened! :) Mine was a bit dry. Still juicy and totally yummy, but next time I'll do as I was told.
This was a top notch, A-One recipe and one that I will certainly make again and again. Would love to use this same brine to immerse a whole chicken in as well. Thank you so much Ralph for a great addition to my recipe file! I'm looking forward to some of the leftovers in a nice sandwich today. :)
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mommyluvs2cook 11 years ago said:

Wow a seven pound turkey breast would have been huge!! I love fennel and actually have some in my fridge right now. Thanks for the post and nice picture! :)

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frankieanne 11 years ago said:

I brined a chicken one time and it was some of the best chicken I ever ate! You have me thinking about doing that again. That's a gorgeous picture. Looks very tasty. Pongo has some nice recipes posted.

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