Herb Roasted Turkey Breast

Adapted from Rachel Ray (I know, I'm shuddering too)

Since we only had 6 people at our Thanksgiving and a TON of sides, I didn't want to make a huge turkey. Leftovers were out of the question since I knew we were doing this all over again in a few days.

The original recipe called for a boneless turkey breast, but try as I might, I couldn't find one and ended up getting a bone-in turkey (and adjusted the recipe accordingly). It also had a weird cavity that I wanted to fill to keep the turkey nice and juicy during the prolonged cooking time, so I just stuffed it like I do when roasting chickens.

Ingredients:

• 2 small onions
• 2 lemons, scrubbed clean
• Bunch of fresh sage
• 1 large handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley (about 1/2 cup, from 12 stems)
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more as needed
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• Bunch of fresh bay leaves
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 bone-in turkey breast (mine was about 7.6 lbs.)
• 1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 4 c. chicken stock
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
• Put 2 of the bay leaves and the butter into a small pan and heat over medium-low heat until the butter is bubbling. Remove from the heat and set aside.
• Coarsely chop 1 of the onions into the bowl of a mini food processor. Using a vegetable peeler, peel off the zest of the lemon.
• Add the lemon zest to the food processor (you don't need that lemon in this recipe anymore, so you can use it for something else), then add half of the bunch of sage, parsley, olive oil, and 1 teaspoon salt and pulse until it forms a coarse paste.

I had never thought to peel any citrus, rather than zesting with a microplane, but it totally makes sense.

• Rinse and pat dry the turkey. Lift the skin away from the meat, then stuff half of the herb paste under the skin of each breast.
• Quarter 1 lemon and 1 onion. Stuff the cavity of the turkey breast with the other half of the bunch of sage, a few fresh bay leaves, and the quartered lemon and onion.
• Transfer the breasts to the roasting pan.
• Once the bay butter has cooled a bit, pour it over the top of the breasts, then salt and pepper the top of the breasts.
• Pour about 2 c. chicken stock in the bottom of the roasting pan.
• Cover the pan with aluminum foil.
• Place the turkey in the oven and immediately decrease the temperature to 400 degrees. Roast for however long you need to fully cook the turkey (~20/lb; mine took 2.5 hours).
• Baste with the pan juices about once every half hour. Once the turkey has been cooking for an hour, remove the foil. If the chicken stock gets depleted, add more when you're basting.
• When the turkey is finished roasting, remove from the oven, transfer to a platter, cover with foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes before carving.
• The original recipe calls for making the gravy in the roasting pan, but mine was gross and covered with burned bits, so I just poured the juices from the roasting pan into a skillet over medium heat. I know you don't really get the brown bits this way but they were more like black bits, so we really didn't want them anyway. Sprinkle the flour over the pan juices, and cook, stirring, for a few minutes.
• Add 1 c. chicken stock and whisk together until it thickens up. Season with salt and pepper.
• Slice the turkey breast on the diagonal, and serve with warm gravy.

Turkey placecards! I used this kit from Paper Source.

Verdict:
This turkey was amazingly juicy, especially considering that I didn't brine it (I don't have enough room for all of my pots and pans, let alone a huge bucket of salt water) and there wasn't any dark meat in sight. I'm thinking it's mainly due to the lemon and onion that were stuffed in the cavity. It was also incredibly flavorful. I personally don't care much for gravy, nor do I really think it was needed for the turkey, but our guests chose to eat the gravy with the mashed potatoes more so than the turkey. I think it was pretty good though, for gravy. It came together nicely without being too thick and had a rich flavor. All in all, a definite winner. I will certainly use this recipe again.