Wednesday 13 October 2010

Smoked Stuffed Turkey Breast

I stumbled upon this recipe in the Barbecue Queens "Big Book of Barbecue" cookbook.  It's an interesting one as it's basically a modified Saltimbocca recipe.  Italian meets turkey meets smoker.  It screamed try me (or perhaps it gobbled try me)!

It's an embarrasingly easy recipe for a terrifc product - right up my alley. You take a whole turkey breast and cut a slit lengthwise through the middle.  This is nice and easy to do with a turkey breast compared to a chicken breast and also makes for much better stuffing potential. 

You then put into the slit a good slice of brie (you could substitute another cheese such as fontina) and a couple of sage leaves.  Then wrap the whole thing with thinly sliced prosciutto. Easy pleasy.

Preheat your smoker on high for 15 minutes, then reduce to smoke or 275F.  Put the prepared turkey breasts directly on for 1.5 - 2 hours. 

This looks like a gourmet dinner.  Each bit has a smoky taste which seems to mostly to come from the prosciutto vs. the turkey.  Also, unlike other smoked poultry, the poultry meat doesn't turn pink from smoking.  The brie doesn't melt in a messy way (due to the proscitto wrapping) and stays nicely contained.  The only thing I would change is to chop up the sage so that it's better distributed. 
I served this dish to a girlfriend who had joined me for dinner and she loved it so much we were concocting how to replicate this without  smoker.  You certainly wouldn't duplicate it, but it would be worth the try as it was so delicious.