Sunday, November 23, 2008

BBQ Turkey Breast and Gravy

We normally do a turkey as a matter of tradition in our house, we have deep fried our turkeys for several years in a row, and the results are truly amazing. My husband is the "deep fried turkey" king in our family and has yet to set anything on fire, including himself, of which I am very grateful!

Just to mix things up a bit, we are storing the deep fryer in favor of the BBQ this year, must be a outdoors thing with him? We are working on a recipe for a BBQ'd turkey breast that I'm sure will make everyone drool.

The recipe we have been working with is an inspiration from Ina Garten, otherwise known as the Barefoot Contessa. Ina has some of the most classic, yet approachable recipes on the Food Network, her style is impeccable, her recipes are not too exotic, even my husband thinks she rocks, because there is always a nice cocktail to start the meal.
Ina's recipe is very classic, whereas I always seem to fall into the familiar flavors I grew up with. Paprika, cumin, garlic, celery salt are all flavors my family use on a regular basis when preparing meat dishes. The smoked paprika and cumin lend a particularly smoky flavor to the turkey, which will be enhanced by the BBQ.

A BBQ'd Turkey breast will feed 4-6 people with leftover turkey sandwich fixin's for the next day.
Start this recipe Wednesday evening and refrigerate overnight for a nicely flavored turkey breast.

BBQ'd Turkey Breast
1 whole turkey breast - bone in (approx. 6 lbs)
2 tblsp melted butter
2 tblsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic- minced
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tblsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tblsp lemon zest

Place your Turkey breast in a small roasting pan with rack. Combine all of the ingredients above and rub into the turkey breast, rubbing some of this mixture under the skin as well.
Cover breast with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat your BBQ grill to 400 degrees F. My grill has a temperature gauge, you can also use an oven thermometer placed inside the closed grill as it heats. Place the entire roasting pan with turkey in your grill and close the lid. Grill for 15 minutes at 400 degrees F, then lower the grill to 325 degrees F and let the breast grill for 90 minutes.
Turn your grill to it's lowest setting, remove breast from roasting pan after 90 minutes and place directly on your grill rack, skin side down. Grill for 5 minutes to crisp skin.
Turn breast back over and take it's temperature, 165 degrees F in the thickest part of the breast is what you are after. Remove from grill and place on a board to rest.

Meanwhile, your luscious turkey drippings are dying to be made into GRAVY.

Place your roasting pan over medium heat (or pour drippings into a saute pan). Depending on the volume of drippings, feel free to add 1/2 stick butter or so to increase the fat volume.
Add 2 tblsp of flour to drippings and butter, stir constantly over heat until a nice roux is achieved.
Add water or broth to thin out roux until desired gravy consistency is reached.
Salt and pepper to taste.

No comments:

Post a Comment