A couple of weeks ago at the Appetite for Books anniversary party, I met Josée di Stasio. Now, if you’re an anglophone you’re probably going, “Huh? Who’s that?” And I’m here to tell you that you need to figure it out. She’s a French television cooking show host that is everything good about Quebec and nothing Ricardo. Wait, wait, wait. I didn’t mean that. I’m sure he’s a lovely person and his recipes are good but he has that overly excited, enthusiastic way of speaking to the camera that bothers me: “You have to make this chocolate mousse. It’s perfect on a cold winter day and your family will appreciate it as much as you will love licking the bowl. It’s a perfect winter treat.” To be fair, having written that, I notice that it’s not a lot different from something di Stasio could potentially say on her show (though she only has a French version while Ricardo does both French and English versions of his show), but it’s all in how he says it. I feel like a five year old child who has never made cookies in her life and he’s pandering. He treats me as though I couldn’t tell a whisk from a spatula and I think crème fraiche is a waste of perfectly good cow’s milk that could better serve my Fruit Loops. There are a lot of older people who watch his show and think the same, to be fair.
But di Stasio treats her audience with respect. She talks to you like a grown-up. She’s wise and you see nothing but the love she has for food and the joy she displays in the kitchen during her show.
When I first moved to Quebec a francophone couple friend of mine told me all about her and how they loved her. I watched the show and “got it” immediately. I also picked up her first cookbook, “À la di Stasio,” and respected the range of simple, comforting recipes, so far removed from anglo gastro pub-style comfort foods. It wasn’t just pasta or burgers or pizza. There were pages of what to do with different kinds of greens and under-appreciated vegetables. This is a mother’s cookbook, but also a first cookbook for a teen moving out for the first time. Recipe titles are in her handwriting, and you know she cooks these meals at home for herself.
She’s a slight woman in person. And on her show when she meets with chefs or producers you can tell she’s not intimating, but she holds her own and she commands respect, unlike TV chefs that are used to running kitchens and usurping control of any situation. Imagine Gordon Ramsay being quiet. Imagine.
So I have a copy of her first cookbook in French and another in English. She now has two others, but the second is for pasta (which I can’t eat, but friends of mine lived on recipes from the book when they moved to Amsterdam and had no extra money) and the third for bread (which I also can’t eat, but would certainly live on if I could). That doesn’t mean I don’t get good use out of the first. And I’d never made this turkey breast recipe before, always thinking, “Grapefruit? And turkey? Together?” Oh me of little faith…
I love how the brine doesn’t need to boil and then cool before you put the turkey in. The spices may not infuse as well this way, but it worked just fine, so maybe they do. Waiting hours for the liquid to cool can seriously mess up your bedtime and your final meal, as you can’t put the raw meat into warm or hot water without risking cooking the meat or creating a great environment for bacteria to grow.
This is perfect if you’re only one or two people and you don’t want to roast an entire turkey. It’s also perfect for a dinner party of four, as it seems fancy, but really isn’t. It says it serves six, but that’s a French six. It’s also very French in that it incorporates a tender meat, perfectly prepared, topped with an intensely reduced sauce. And butter. Just enough. Not too much. And just at the end for flavour.
You do make it a day in advance, but it’ll be worth it. If you don’t trust me, trust di Stasio.
Turkey Breast with Grapefruit and Cranberries
adapted from À la di Stasio
8 cups cold water
1/2 cup salt
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp crushed black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 kg turkey breast (2 – 2.2 lbs), without skin. I also did boneless, but bones add flavour, so it’s your call. 2 lbs of breast without bone is a very different than 2 lbs with. It’s probably more common to find these rolls of turkey breast without bone. The picture in the book looks like a log, and the meat often comes wrapped in kitchen twine with a roast.
2 tbsp oil
5 shallots, or 3 small onions, thinly sliced
Zest of half a grapefruit
1/2 cup fresh grapefruit juice (you’ll only need 1 grapefruit for this. Don’t go buying fresh grapefruit juice in a bottle)
1/2 cup dry white wine or Noilly Prat (what to you do with the leftover Nouilly Prat? Artichokes!)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (or veal stock – “fond de veau”, or half chicken and half veal)
Up to 1/2 cup dried cranberries (optional, but very nice, though I actually used about 2 tbsp of dried blueberries because that’s what I had. They soak up the sauce and add sweetness and oh! it’s so good!)
Up to 2 tbsp cold butter in cubes
1. Combine the water through garlic in a large bowl or pot and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve. Add the turkey and marinate at least 3 hours (up to overnight) in the fridge. I cut the butcher’s twine to unwrap the breast and soak it more evenly. This will also let you brown more of its sides, but you can skip it if you want, especially if you want a nicer log-like presentation. Or just re-wrap it after step 2.
2. Take out the turkey breast and dry it with paper towels.
3. Preheat the oven to 350F. Sear the turkey breast in the 2 tbsp of oil on medium-high heat in an oven-safe skillet. You want all the sides to brown. This should take about 10 minutes or so since the breast is so large. Once you place the breast in the oil don’t touch it for a few minutes. The meat will detach itself from the skillet or pot once it’s properly browned. Before that it will stick and you’ll end up tearing the skin. That’s if you have a decent skillet.
4. Add the onions, stir to colour very, very slightly, and place the skillet in the oven (or transfer to an oven safe dish, scraping all the sticky turkey bits into the new dish too (for flavour).
5. Roast 1 hour in the oven. Then add the grapefruit zest, juice, white wine or Nouilly Prat, broth and dried cranberries.
6. Roast 15 minutes more or until the internal temp of the turkey reaches 160F. Remove from the oven, and place the turkey breast in aluminium foil for 15 minutes while you reduce the sauce. The internal temp will get up to 170, which is the ideal “safe” turkey temp according to some.
7. While you’re waiting for your turkey to finish cooking in the alumimium, put the skillet back on the stove burner on high heat (or scrape into a new skillet from your oven-safe dish if your skillet wasn’t oven-safe). Reduce the sauce for 2 minutes, then add the butter, one cube at a time, whipping until incorporated.
8. Slice the turkey thinly, as you would roast beef. Pour a little sauce on top of each slice. I like to pass the sauce at the table since you taste it better this way than just pouring it all over the breast. What a waste! I actually prefer it as a dipping sauce on the side since you taste it even more this way, but that’s very un-French I think.
Di Stasio recommends serving it with sweet potato purée with olives and garden-fresh green peas or green beans. I agree. Not that it matters. She’s clearly more correct than I’ll ever be.
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