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Involtini is an Italian delicacy that means little bundles. What it is is a piece of meat
that's been pounded thinly, stuffed, rolled, and then cooked.
What’s great about this dish is that you can prepare it ahead of time and then pan
sear it, fry it, serve it hot or cold, and for any meal time. I've sliced the turkey breast
into a half inch thickness and I've placed it in between two pieces of plastic wrap so
that I can pound it with a mallet. I'm going to use the flat side and pound the turkey
breast until it reaches a quarter of an inch thickness. Our goal is to turn this turkey
breast into as rectangular shape as possible. We want to make sure that we trim off any
excess turkey so that the shape of the involtini will be even. It's time to season our turkey.
So I'm going to sprinkle both sides with some salt and a little bit of white pepper. Be careful
when you lift the turkey up not to tear it. We're going to make sure to season the other
side. You don't need too much seasoning, especially the salt. Some of the wonderful aromatic flavors
we're going to add to the involtini are some dried marjoram, as well as some fennel pollen.
If you can't find fennel pollen, you can also use crushed up fennel seed. I have some basil
leaves here that have been cleaned of their stems and I'm going to lay them on top of
the turkey breast that's been pounded. I'm going to leave a little bit of space at the
top over here so that when I roll the involtini up, it seals quite nicely. Here I have some
turkey bacon and I'm going to lay that on top of the basil. And then the last part of
our involtini is going to be to lay our cheese. Here I have some thinly sliced provolone cheese,
which is a beautiful Italian cheese that has a little bit of a smoky flavor to it. Now let's
roll our turkey involtini up. This is the fun part. As tightly as you can, making
sure that all the ingredients stay inside and you don't tear the turkey breast that's
been pounded so thinly, you're going to roll this up into a very nice tight log. The next
step for this dish is going to be rolling in the plastic. To assist us, I suggest that
you wipe down your counter with a little bit of water. That's going to help our plastic
wrap stick to the board. Now we're going to take our turkey, place it on the plastic wrap,
and then we're going to roll this as tightly as we can. And we're going to do this twice.
So pull the plastic wrap down against the turkey, roll it up as tightly as you can, and
then hold the ends over here, come back towards you, and roll forward, because we place that
water down on the counter first, you can see how easily that roll likes to tighten up. Now
this time, I suggest that you place the plastic wrap lengthwise, put your roll down on top,
roll it up, and you'll see that I have these longer edges over here that I'll be able to
tie once the log has been formed. The reason that we want to tie the ends is because we're
going to be cooking this in a water bath and we just want to make sure that we seal in
all of those beautiful juices. For the involtini, we're going to be using the sous vide technique.
This is a very popular technique used in food service operations all around the world. At
this point, it's very important to make sure that you have an airtight seal and that there's
no air that's entered into your bag. Here I have our water bath that's been prepared to
145 degrees Fahrenheit using a thermal circulator. It's important that the temperature be correct
before you add your product. So i'm going to place the bag of the involtini inside and
if it's necessary, we might want to weigh them down if they start to float. And then I'm going
to cover it with plastic or a lid to keep the heat in. We're going to cook this at 145
degrees for two hours. What that will do is we'll pasteurize the meat so that it's ready
to serve. Now that our turkey is cooking, let's make a savory, sweet, and delicious condiment
to go on our plate: beautiful balsamic reduction. I have here some delicious and high quality
balsamic vinegar and some brown sugar. And we're going to put this in a saucepan and
we'll heat it on medium high heat until it reduces to about a quarter of its volume. So
now we have this beautiful, syrupy balsamic reduction. I'm going to set it aside to cool
until we're ready to plate the dish. I'm ready to make our second sauce for our dish. So here
I have a broccoli pesto made with basil, some pecorino romano cheese, some garlic, and some
beautiful olive oil. So we're going to actually put all of these ingredients into our blender
and if you like, you can add a pinch of salt. So I'm going to put our lid on our blender,
open up the top here, and with the motor running, I'm going to add our olive oil.
I've removed the turkey from the bags and I've cut off the ends and we're going to add
another layer of texture, flavor, and color to our dish by searing the turkey in a pan.
So we're going to cook it just long enough in order to make sure that it has a beautiful
color and a delicious flavor. So we're going to take our involtini and we're going to slice
it into half inch slices. Each portion will be about five slices of the involtini. I have
everything prepared to plate our turkey involtini. Let's start with our broccoli pesto. Look at
this gorgeous color. It's going to add a wonderful layer of depth. I'm going to put a dollop on
the plate and then I'm going to just give it a little bit of a swoosh with my spoon
for some contrast. I'm going to follow the curve of that beautiful pesto. Next we're going
to plate some oven roasted tomatoes. These are roma tomatoes that I've roasted with a
little bit of olive oil, very low and slow in the oven. It's concentrated the flavor and
the color and then lastly we're going to use our savory sweet and rich glossy balsamic
reduction. You have to move fast with this one. There you have it. Your guests will enjoy
this turkey involtini with broccoli pesto.