A Legit Smoked Turkey Recipe

My last Turkey Recipe was more of a joke than anything. Although it might not be all that bad and sure would get a lot of laughs if you pulled that bird out on Thanksgiving...

This one is a legit recipe although it is only the breast. I make this all year round when I'm tired of pork and beef. I start off with a basic brine of whatever I have on hand - 12 quart pot, cup of salt per gallon, can of soda, garlic, some chunked up fruit, maybe an onion, black pepper, brown sugar, in the fridge for 12-15 hours.

The next day I pull it out of the brine and rinse it off. Sometimes I inject the brine into the breast for a little more flavor and moisture. I don't always and is not necessary. You would get more of a flavor infusion using a store bought injection mixture.

For this one I decided to coat the breast in Penzey's BBQ 3000 rub. So I pealed skin back that covers the breast like so:


At this point you can do all kinds of things to kick a turkey up to the next level. Butter and herbs. A layer of sausage. Even slices of bacon or pepperoni. I just coated it with BBQ 3000:


Once the breast is coated I pulled the skin back up and strategically placed some toothpicks through the skin and the breast to keep the skin from pealing back during the cooking process:


Then I slathered the bird with veggie oil and gave it a dusting of an Italian herb mixture and on the grill with a couple chunks of apple:


Now inside for the sides. Nothing difficult here at all, and besides, with a healthy meal like smoked turkey breast a nice veggie will round out this well balanced meal. Side #1 was fresh green beans taken to the next level. I took a sheet of tin foil, laid down some strips of bacon, tossed some minced garlic and black pepper, put the beans on top of that, added some more minced garlic, black pepper and some more layers of bacon for a nice healthy side dish cooked in bacon grease!?!?!


Green Beans in foil take quite a while to cook on the grill in a foil pouch when smoking so get these on early unless you like reeeeaaaaallllyyyy crunchy green beans.

Side #2, grilled portabella mushroom caps. Pull off the stems, wipe clean with a paper towel. Never rinse mushrooms in water. They are sponges and will absorb too much water. I took the mushroom caps, threw them into a zip lock and added some Italian Dressing for about 20 minutes. Doesn't take long at all to marinade mushrooms since they absorb liquids so readily:


Speaking of Italian dressing, this stuff makes a phenomenal marinade for just about anything from steak, to ribs, to chicken or fish. I don't buy a particular kind of Italian dressing. Whenever I find myself in the dressing aisle I look for whatever they are blowing out for a buck and buy a few bottles. I rarely do salads so I'm not using it for that so I have no preference for brand. I do have a preference for bottles of the stuff for a buck.

Here's the Turkey a couple of hours in, and as you can see here, the beans are not on. Yeah, forgot about the beans inside so we had some crunchy beans!?!?


Here we have the beans on and the ports grilling right over the heat. Nothing to cooking ports. Just grill them like a burger:


Here we have the turkey sliced and the a very good Pinot to go with it being a Cima Calina provided by Fool's Pappy:


The turkey was very moist and delicious. The BBQ 3000 added a good deal of the flavor to the turkey along the outside edges but would've probably been better served had I mixed the BBQ 3000 with some butter and made a compound butter to put in there to baste as it cooked. I just think the butter flavor would've helped as well. All in all, it was a very enjoyable night, for among other reasons, the process, the result and spending time with my dad....