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Thomas Keller's Roasted Turkey Breast

In October of 1999, Beth and I packed up our things and moved two Dallas, Texas. Three days earlier we had been offered positions at the worlds largest software company and that was after telephone interviews a few days earlier. That was the pace of the dot.com era.

On the flight down I grabbed a couple of magazines, one on vintage aircraft, the other was the current issue of Esquire. It was their yearly "Genius" edition, Charlize Theron was on the cover, and somewhere near the back was recipe that I first made for a bunch of American co-workers with no place to go on American Thanksgiving that year.

Thomas Keller is a man who needs no introduction in food circles. He is a chef, restaurateur and owner of Napa Valley's The French Laundry which has been named one of the world's top fifty restaurants. His inclusion in the Genius issue was a "duh yeah" moment in my mind.

But alas, I digress. Cook this. Go on, do it. It is fan-fraking-tastic. Period.

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Use half turkey breasts, as the mayonnaise will not adhere properly to a full breast. The turkey is done when the meat thermometer registers 160 to 165 degrees.

Ingredients

  • One 2-½- to 3-pound turkey breast
  • 2 cups homemade or good-quality commercial mayonnaise
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • Liberal amounts of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Place an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a cooling rack. Rinse the breast and pat dry with paper towels. Trim away excess skin and fat. Mix the mayonnaise with the remaining ingredients. Sprinkle the underside of the breast with salt and pepper and completely cover the skin side with the mayonnaise-nutmeg-clove-and-paprika mixture. Spread as evenly as possible. The coating should be about ½-inch thick. Place the breast, mayonnaise side up, on the rack and roast for 1 hour and 40 minutes or until the thickest part of the breast reaches 160 degrees. The coating will have turned black. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for a few minutes before carving.
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