| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 20 hr 15 min |
| Prep: | 15 min |
| Inactive: | 17 hr |
| Cook: | 3 hr |
| Yield: | 14 servings |
Ingredients
- 3 cups salt
- 1 bunch fresh parsley
- 1 bunch fresh tarragon
- 1 bunch fresh sage
- 1 bunch fresh chives
- 2 whole turkey breasts, about 12 pounds
- 1 gallon duck fat
Instructions
- Place the salt and all the herbs into a food processor and process until the salt is pure green. Set aside.
- Place the turkey breasts on a wire rack above a sheet pan and place in the refrigerator to dry for 3 hours. Take out and rub the salt all over the turkey breasts. Return to the refrigerator for another 2 hours. Take out and rinse all the salt off in cold running water. Place back on a clean rack on a sheet pan and let sit overnight in the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
- Take the turkey out and place, skin side up, in a deep hotel pan. Cover the turkey completely in the duck fat. Roast in the oven for 3 hours. When it comes out, let it sit for 1 hour to cool off. Serve.
Reviews
Great recipe. Saw the show and quickly ordered some duck fat on the internet from Pennsylvania. Did up a run of the mill store brand frozen turkey this Thanksgiving cooking both light and dark meat and it came out very tender with a rich turkey flavor and maybe just a touch of duckiness. He’s right about the salt, be careful. I left mine salted about a half hour longer than recommended and it was a little bit more salty than I would have preferred. For the green salt I blended 1 cup of kosher salt with the herbs but for my deboned 14lb turkey I used less than 1/2 of that so I stuck the remainder in the freezer and maybe will try it on some chicken. I was too lazy to remove the tendons from the dark meat so I just cooked it as it was. Since 14lb was a lot of bird for my convection oven I cooked only 1/2 at a time in a single layer. It was so good that I’m cooking the other half in the oven right now.
My youngest brother Zeffirelli and wife Susan have been doing traditional Thanksgiving dinner for the family for 18 years. The juiciness of the turkey is usually good, but occasionally very dry requiring large amounts of gravy to rescue it. Not this year. The day before, a whole turkey was butchered into the breasts, thighs and drum sticks with the other parts headed for the stock pot. All parts were brined as shown, while easy to do, it was time consuming. The legs were sinewy with all of the tendons, but the delicious dark meat was easily teased out-akin to pulled pork. The white meat was extraordinarily moist and seasoned, without being overly salty ( I even added a tad of SnP to my taste.). A search for duck fat has commenced so we can repeat this recipe as we still have turkey cravings to satisfy.
I am rating the recipe according to having eaten it at the restaurant several times. One difference between this copy and the real thing is that the restaurant (which is now The Y.B. in Cape May, NJ – Younger Brother, Pete, to George is that the dish in the restaurant is DARK MEAT. And it is fabulous!!