The Ultimate Turkey Roulade 2017

After making Turkey Roulade many times over it was time for an updated post. The process is mostly the same but with some slight variances. Hopefully, this will be my last post on the subject but doubtful.

You have some options. You can buy a whole Turkey and break it down or buy a Turkey breast. If you like dark meat, you have to buy a whole Turkey. I've done it both ways. It doesn't matter. Have you ever broken down a Turkey? Chefsteps has two great videos on the whole process Video 1 and Video 2.

Easy to break down!!!!

Using a very sharp knife start pulling and cutting the Turkey Skin away from the breast. Make slight cuts in the membrane that connects the skin to the breast. Try not to puncture the skin.

How simple was that.... remove excess fat!!!

Here they are... Breasts removed with the skin.

Should you remove the tenderloin? It all depends. Do a preliminary step first to help you make the decision. Invert the breast on each-other and see if you can wrap the skin around the whole-breast like this picture shows. If it doesn't look like this, then you need to remove the tenderloin. BTW- I've only been able to make the whole breast fit with the tenderloin about 20% of the time. Sometimes there's not enough skin to wrap the whole thing.

This next part is essential!!! You must Dry-Brine the Turkey!!! I won't go into all the details as to why. I've done that numerous times. You can google the info or read my past posts. Treat each Turkey piece with salt. Do not toss salt in a container and mix it all up. This is not an adequate way to dry-brine. If you need a percentage, it's about 1%. This is about the only thing I do not precisely measure. Refrigerate for 24-36 hours.

After the dry-brining step gets ready. You will need some type of injector. Melt a ton of non-salted butter. It's up to you how much. Now for the herbs. I chopped a whole bunch of Italian Parsley, Lots of Sage, Thyme, and rosemary.

Inject a load of butter throughout the Breast. I used a lot of butter!!!!!

Stretch out the skin on your cutting board on top of the 24-inch plastic wrap. Coat the Breast and skin with Transglutaminase. You want to make sure that the TG makes its way into every nook and cranny.

It should look like this. For more details read my previous posts.

This is a two-person operation at this point. Start rolling the Roulade with a layer or two of plastic wrap. Start tossing in the herb mixture (optional some coarse pepper). Yes that's right the herb mixture will never touch the breasts (Read below why). Roll it two more times or so... Add some more herbs making sure to cover the Roulade from end to end. This thing needs to be TIGHT!!! Stretch and roll, stretch, and roll. Squeeze the ends and twist in the opposite direction all the while pinching the ends to force the breast to constrict a little. I wish I would have videotaped this. All in all, I must have made 20-30 evolutions when I got done.

In the end, it looks like this... it was 11.5 inches long and about 3 inches in diameter. Again using two people twist ends and secure with butchers twine. Use pliers if you have to. It needs to be extremely tight.

Note: Use a sharp fork or a sausage pricker and make tiny little holes all over the roulade.

Explanation about the Herbs- The herbs are basically a surface treatment and nothing more. If you were to place herbs directly on the breast, they would overpower the flavor of the Turkey and present an uneven herb taste. Puncturing the plastic wrap with the layered herbs will allow the herbs to gently perfume the Turkey. The Turkey juices will mingle with the herbs and spread their flavor.

Vacuum seal and place in the refrigerator for 24-36 hours. It's gonna take a minimum of 24 hours for the TG to bind the proteins.

A word from yours truly… Now, this part is a matter of preference. After doing this several times using different temps, I have settled on a few. I'm not going to get into all the science of surface vs. core pasteurization blah blah..... I Sous-Vide at 145f at 5 hours. Go higher or lower it's up to you. Why would you go higher/lower? It's all about preference and how you are going to finish. Do you plan on smoking for a long time? Do you plan on starting out cold? Are you going to deep fry? If you have to think about how the finishing process will affect the internal temp. Are you going to monitor the internal temp? Do you plan on shocking to bring down temp before finishing? All these things should be taken into consideration.

Important: After you have SV'd (yes I use SV as an Adjective, Noun, and a Verb) you must Cold-Shock the Roulade by submerging it into an Ice-Bath. Basically something large enough to hold lots of ice, water, and the Roulade. The idea is to bring down the temp quickly so you can refrigerate. The Shock & Awe Ice-Bath will take about 2 hours for adequate temps to be reached.

What now? It's been a day... heck maybe even a week.....so what now. Ahhh... the convenience of SV. As you already know we need to put a good sear on the Roulade for it to look appetizing and taste good. This is how I achieve great sears on all my proteins. In this case, I removed Roulade from its plastic home; rinsed under cold water, and dried with paper towels. Place protein on the rack and dry using a fan. This is the exact fan I use. If you want to hasten, the drying encloses the tray. I stand a cutting board behind the rack to increase air circulation.

After it's completely dried, I sprayed it with a little cooking oil and coated it with some spices .....NO SALT. I used simple poultry seasoning and a non-salt herb concoction. Get a pan large enough to hold Roulade and fry on a high temp. Move it all around and use a spoon to get some of the hot oil on the protein. You know you're done when it's nice and golden. Don't worry about the inside being cold. The heat of the oil will increase the internal temp just enough for serving. You could also smoke or do it in an oven. Make sure to monitor the internal temp of the Roulade.