Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas Ideas

All
For those of you celebrating Christmas here are some twists to traditional holiday items.

Sweet potatoes roasted with orange, paprika and cumin
Cut each sweet potato into six to eight pieces, toss them with enough olive oil to coat, salt and pepper, a dash of paprika and cumin and roast at 400F until done. 
While the sweet potatoes are roasting, zest one orange.  Melt enough butter in a small pan with the orange zest to coat the sweet potatoes.  Once the potatoes are done, toss them with the orange butter and some chopped parsley.  The juxtaposition of the sweet, citrus flavor of the orange with the earthy flavors of the cumin and paprika work quite nice.

Stuffed turkey breast with giblet gravy
Make sure you have a sharp boning or cook's knife.
Take a turkey breast and lay it skin side down laying perpendicular to you. To help you visualize, imagine you are looking at a turkey.  You want the turkey's rear facing you, that is how the breast should be laying.
  You will be butterflying it.
Make and incision from one side to the other, down the middle of the breast lengthwise. 
NOTE you not want to cut all the way through the turkey breast otherwise you will have two pieces.
After you have made the incision,  place your knife where the incision ends and slice towards the outside of the breast, cutting parallel to the cutting board.  Think of an upside down letter "T"
NOTE you do not want to cut all the way.  You only want to cut about half an inch or more away from the side.  You only want to cut enough to open up the breast.
When cutting-do not push, let your knife do the work using a gentle sawing motion.
Repeat the same motion with the other side. Open the breast and season the inside with salt and pepper

For the stuffing:
Get some ground pork and add some fine chopped white onion, garlic, herbs (I recommend something like thyme, rosemary or sage) and mix together with some salt, pepper and if you can find it some chorizo spice.You can even use a bit of cajun spice to.

Take the stuffing and spread it over the butterflied turkey breast.  You want it to be about a half inch thick. 
Take the turkey breast and turn it a quarter turn so it would be parallel to you as opposed to how it was before.
Roll the turkey breast up as if you were rolling a jelly roll cake or perhaps even a joint if that is your thing.  Make sure it is fairly tightly rolled.
If your turkey breast was not turned in the right direction before you stuffed it it will be much fatter and not as long. 
Tie butcher's twine at every two inches and place in a roasting pan and cook at about 350F-400F depending on the size of your breast.
Cook for approximately 40 or more minutes.
Once cooked, let it rest about fifteen minutes prior to slicing.
Serve with giblet gravy as you normally would.

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