I’M STUFFED! I had prepared myself for Thanksgiving week by taking my leggings out of retirement. They are now back in business…. full time! I hope your holidays were filled with your closest friends, family, and delicious food, like mine was. I was so full when I initially started this post that I actually fell into a food coma and had to finish typing when I woke up! I think I’m still full…
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I get to see extended family that I haven’t seen in almost a year, it’s an excuse for all the friends to get together, all the cooks get to be in the same kitchen at once and learns tips and tricks from one another, and new laughs and memories are created with the people I love. Thanksgiving really makes me think of how thankful I am for everything that’s in my life and I couldn’t ask for anything more. Even better….. there is sooo much to eat!
This year, my mom decided to do something a little different than the normal roasting or frying of an entire turkey. She was watching something on tv one day and saw someone rolling some stuffing inside of a turkey breast. We’re not huge fans of stuffing, so she put a little asian twist on it and stuffed the turkey breasts with chinese sticky rice instead. Genius! It was a hit. I had 4 different Thanksgiving dinners and was getting pretty tired of plain old turkey so when she told me what she was going to do, I was looking forward to scarfing it down. Mmmmmm….
Something so simple like sticky rice, holds a special place in my stomach. My mom doesn’t make it very often so when she does, it’s always a real treat. Sticky rice is a short grained glutinous rice. When uncooked, it looks slightly thicker than regular rice and when cooked, it becomes very sticky and chewy. In Chinese cuisine, sticky rice is always mixed with many other ingredients and is either wrapped inside of a reed leaf or rolled into a ball and wrapped in a very thin dough. It’s very filling and of course delicious!
Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Turkey Breasts
2 turkey breasts
salt
pepper
sticky rice (recipe down below)
2 lbs. bacon
2 medium carrots
2 stalks of celery
1 onion
4 c. chicken broth
3 tbsp. flour
On a flat surface, lay out the bacon closely together forming a blanket of bacon. Do this with each pound of bacon.
Pound out each turkey breast until they are about an inch thick and sprinkle both sides with salt and paer. Lay over the blanket of bacon. Place a couple heaping large spoons of sticky rice onto the middle of the turkey breast, forming a row of rice in the middle.
Carefully roll the bacon and turkey breast over the sticky rice and seal it by over lapping the ends of the bacon with each other. Tie on the ends and the middle of the roll. Heat a large heavy pan and brown all sides of each turkey roll.
Chop the onions into 1 inch pieces and slice the carrots and celery. Put the vegetables and chicken broth into a large and deep heavy baking dish. Place the turkey breasts into the broth and on top of the vegetables. Cover with foil and put into the oven for about an hour. Take the foil off during the last 15 minutes. Let the turkey rolls rest and cool before cutting.
After you take the turkey rolls out, put the gravy into a pot and bring to a boil. Slowly add flour until the you achieve the consistency you like..
Chinese Sticky Rice
2 cups glutinous rice
Enough water to cover rice (up to first knuckle of middle finger)
