So when my little brother was visiting, I don’t know when, he was wanting to learn to cook. I showed him many things but the Hubs showed him how to debone and butterfly the turkey breast. Then we were going to put a saukerkraut stuffing inside and a Pastrami Rub on the outside. Well the pastrami rub we found somewhere on google (which I’d happily cite if I knew where it was so I may edit this later), tasted nothing like a pastrami rub but we decided that was fine because it was delicious and we couldn’t get enough. We even turned this into sandwiches for the papa when he came that afternoon to drive my brother back to his house.
The stuffing (pretty much from The Low Carb Cookbook)
3 oz bacon (we used the bacon from Charlie’s, my fav)
8 oz onion
1-1.5 lb sauerkraut, drained
1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (you could add more as this wasn’t very noticeable, I’ll probably try 1T next time)
1 lg granny smith (a sweeter one could totally work here though, as long as it was one that kept its shape)
1 c white wine (I think we used )
We chopped the bacon (finely), onions, and apple. Then threw the bacon in a prewarmed pan on MED-LOW (I did this to render as much fat as possible, if you don’t care and don’t mind adding more oil later if needed you can cook at a higher temp but remember if you get it too hot you aren’t actually saving yourself anytime because you’ll just have to cool it before it can go in the bird) and cooked it slowly until it started to crisp. Then turned it up to MED and added the onions, and when they softened the sauerkraut, caraway, and apple. When the apples started to perfume a bit, we added the wine, turned up the heat some more covered and cooked until the wine was absorbed.
The Dry Rub (this is someone else’s and is labeled Pastrami Rub somewhere out there)
5T kosher salt
4T paprika
3T ea: coriander seeds and brown sugar
2T ea: black peppercorns and yellow mustard seeds
1T white peppercorns
8 cloves garlic, minced
Grind that which needs it, the seeds and peppercorns, and stir everything together. (We used my coffee grinder that is devoted to spices, to get a nice powder for the rub… and next time I’ll probably do garlic powder in place of the garlic to have a nice smooth rub
Assembling the Turkey Breast
Take the butterflied breast, massage the outside with the rub. Flip over, add filling, roll up and tie off in a few places (you could stuff and then rub, but rubbing first leaves the stings whiter so it’s easier to spot them later when snipping them free–not a big deal either way) and bake.
Ta-dah!! Enjoy my dear Little Hawk, and yes I think you could do just do one portion with a chicken breast (which be easier to butterfly too) but you’d have to trial run it too see how many breasts worth this made up to know how much to cut the stuffing and rubs… Start by halfing them, and ask the Pops to help you eat some if it makes too much (since you’re there anyway). Good Luck
Eat Something 