Turkey Breast with Pear Hash

My bacon-wrapped turkey breast stuffed with pear hash. Let’s get to it by starting with my brine. I’ve already added some sugar into my water here and that’s all a brine is. Sugar and salt so salt goes in right here and then if you want to get fancy with the brine, then you start adding a little bit more flavor so I’m going to do some red chili flakes for a little bit of spice and then I've got some sage and thyme here. So some sage in and then to that I’m going to add some thyme.

Now all really a brine is just kind of like a marinade. You can now put this into the refrigerator for an hour or so or you can do it overnight but make sure when you do brine that you used kosher salt. Alright so here are the breasts I’m talking about. I’m going to go ahead and get these into my brine liquid here, skin on. When you give them at the butcher, sometimes the tenderloin is still in there. It’s kind of like a loose piece of the turkey right here. Just pull it right off, save it to the side for something else. We don’t want it in the actual turkey breast though because it makes it kind of hard to roll up at the end.

Alright, I’m going to get this into the refrigerator. Just for about an hour or so, that’s all you want to brine it for. But like I said, if you got time, do it overnight. It makes it nice, moist and very flavorful. Alright so I’ve got my shallot here. I’m going to go ahead and minced it up and so I’ve still got the thyme and the sage. If I’m going to brine the turkey breast in it, why not stuff it with a little bit of that flavor as well. So I’m going to chop up the herbs along with my shallot and get it ready for the sauté.

So I’ve got the thyme, sage, shallots all chopped up and ready to go. I want to get some butter into my pan now that I’ve already got preheated so I can sauté them up, just a couple of tablespoons. Those are in, we’ll move those around a little bit so nothing burns and everything gets lots of butter. I’m going to get some salt on a situation and some red pepper flakes. So I’m just going to peel my pears and get ready to go. Now make sure when you buy pears you get the firm kind because this is going to cook twice. We’re going to sauté it in a pan and then also roll it up with a stuffing in the turkey breast. I’ve got some walnuts. I’m going to go ahead and give it a chop, too. I’m going to use some of the walnuts in my pear stuffing. So remember, I have my pear that I went in ahead in, diced and got really nice and tiny. The cool thing about a really firm pear is it’s going to hold its shape in a sauté process.

Alright now to this, I want to add some bread crumbs of course and every stuffing. I got to have some kind of bread action. Don’t do the Italian ones though. Just the plain is good to go. And then to that just to moisturize and hydrate it, I’m going to get some chicken stock out. Now if you’ve got turkey stock you know that’s where you should really go for this but chicken doesn’t hurt at all. Let’s go ahead and pour some in. I bowl it. What you're going for here is something that kind of brings everything together but doesn’t turn it into mousse. Now I want to show you my turkey breast here. When you get it like this, there might be that tenderloin and they’re split right out and then right in the center you kind of want make a cut and then start kind of thin in and out.

Our goal here is to make it nice and flat so it’s easy to roll. You're going to use some plastic wrap. It’s going to kind of help you roll up your turkey breast and secure it and make it nice and tight so when you get in to the fridge for a rest and you bring it back out, it’s going to be easy to twine up and here we go. Another strip and this is going to wait for the next one. Alright, here we go. I’ve got my turkey breast here. All I’ve got to do now is get my stuffing into the center, roll it up and get it right and put it into the refrigerator.

Alright, my breast is stuffed, rolled up now. I’ve got to wrap it with bacon. Now this is perfectly rolled, stuffed and wrapped with my bacon strips. I’ve got some paprika right here but I’ve got them aside. Now this is the key to making really nice and tight rolls so we’ll get it out of the refrigerator. We can go ahead and twine it out so I kind of like to do the same effect and pull the ends in and just roll it up really tight. I’ve got my cast iron pan here ready for the sear action. It’s going to get some oil down on it and show you how to do this. Now the reason that I’m twining this up is because I want it to hold its shape. I’ve worked a long time on rolling this up and putting it in the plastic and then we put it in to refrigerator for about an hour so we can kind of just maintain its shape.

So a nice, tight thigh right here does the trick. Cut off the excess and that’s it. Just going to get this into my pan now for a nice sear. I’ve got my oven preheated now with 375 degrees, turn that off. I love the cast iron. Now the cooking time for this is about 60 minutes but this is something that you really want a temperature check so I suggest right around the 50-minute mark to get your internal thermometer in there and what you're looking for is an internal temperature of 160 degrees and when you take it out and let it rest it’s going to have some carry-over time and the temp is going to come up for you. Look at that. Come on, isn’t that pretty? I love this meal.