Catch & Cook – Turkey Breast Schnitzel
Eugene L. 05.09.24
Now you know how to breast and leg out your wild turkey Let’s get to cooking some of it. I’ll be making some Turkey Breast Schnitzel. This recipe only uses the turkey breast, but I’ll have something out soon for those legs don’t you worry. The breast of a bird is a leaner cut of meat so if you overcook it you’ll end up with something very dry and tough. So along with being pretty careful with cooking temp, there are a few ways to hedge your bets to keep that from happening. In this recipe, we use mechanical tenderization to break up the muscle fibers to keep them from tightening up too much when cooking. With lean muscle the tighter the fibers the tougher and dryer the cut.
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Turkey Breast Schnitzel Ingredients
- Wild Turkey Breast
- 2 Eggs
- All-Purpose Flour
- Panko Bread Crumb
- Salt
- Black Pepper
- Lemon
- Water
- Olive Oil for Frying
The first step is to pat dry the turkey breast with paper towels and pick off any leftover feather stands that might have been missed when you first cleaned your bird. Then you want to do a little trimming of the breast. You want to take off any connective tissue, excess fat, blood vessels, and any other excess membranes from the pieces of breast meat. All that stuff isn’t very great to eat, either chewy or just doesn’t taste very good.
Catch & Cook – Turkey Breast Schnitzel
Once you’ve finished the trimming you want to break the turkey breast down into portions that are about the size of the palm of your hand. Also if you find more connective tissue and blood vessels as you portion the breast out, cut them out. If you have pieces that are smaller from just how the breast was cut hold onto them too. Just because they’re small doesn’t mean they will fry up good later.
How to tenderize and flatten down the turkey breast pieces. Put down a layer of plastic wrap across your cutting board, then place the turkey breast pieces spread out with some spaces between them. Then put down another layer of plastic wrap. Then take a flat meat hammer or a saucepan if you don’t have a hammer handy, and gently tenderize/flatten the pieces of turkey breast. You aren’t trying to smash the shit out of them, but you do want to flatten them down to about half-inch thickness.
After you tenderize/flatten the turkey breast pieces season both sides liberally with salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes with the salt and pepper so it can get into it a little better.
While that is sitting, get your dredging station ready. You want three wide bowls or trays. The first with AP flour, the second with an egg wash, and the last with panko bread crumb. For the egg wash you want two eggs and 2 tbsp of water all beat together till smooth.
For dredging the turkey breast you want to do a two-hand method, one hand handles only wet and the other handles only dry. This keeps you from dredging your fingers as you work. I use Panko breadcrumbs here because of how crispy they become but you can use whichever breadcrumb is your favorite. Start by dredging the turkey pieces in the AP flour first, make sure every nook and cranny is well dusted, then shake off the excess and drop it into the egg wash. Then using your “wet” hand make sure the egg gets all over the turkey and start soaking the flour coating.
Then using your wet hand take the piece of turkey breast from the egg wash and drop it into the panko breadcrumb. Use your dry hand to then coat the turkey in bread crumbs. Make sure to press the panko into the piece of turkey to ensure you have a nice even coating of breadcrumb. Repeat this process for all the pieces of turkey breast you have and put them aside still in the bread crumb bowl.
Take a pan and add in a 1/4″ layer of olive oil, then heat it over medium heat til it starts shimmering. Once the oil is up to temp start adding in a couple of pieces of the breaded turkey. You don’t want to add too much at a time or you’ll cool to the oil and make the schnitzel greasy.
Let the pieces of turkey fry till the first side starts getting golden brown, then flip. Fry till both sides are golden and the internal temp of the thickest part of the schnitzel is reading 165f with a food thermometer. After each piece is done, pull it out onto a wire rack or some paper towels to pull away excess oil. Sprinkle with salt right away.
Serve the turkey breast schnitzel right away with a wedge of lemon with some sides. I made some German potatoes and a salad to go with mine.
