Roasted Turkey Legs with Sage Butter
Turkey is a wonderful meat. These days, it's largely been reduced to Thanksgiving and deli sandwiches, but one must remember that it used to be so popular that it came in close second to the bald eagle for America's national bird. In fact, turkey used to be so popular that they were hunted to endangerment in the early 20th century.
Thankfully the wild turkey population has recovered spectacularly in the last 70 years, and these beautiful birds are now found in every state except Alaska. Also worth praising are all the farmers who tend to these free-range birds and offer us a chance to partake in their optimal nutrition.
This recipe is one of my favorites. One of the biggest obstacles to making turkey meat taste great is to get a desirable tenderness. This achieves that wonderfully by making use of sage butter. Here's what you need:
Turkey Legs - Quality is nutrition. Find your favorite local farmer and support healthful and restorative agriculture.
Butter - Grass-fed, unsalted.
Dried Sage - For optimal flavor, home-grown sage from your garden, dried in a dehydrator. If it's too late in the season for that, it's no problem to get rubbed sage from your local grocery.
Coconut or avocado oil - To crisp up the skin, you'll have to brush it with oil.
Salt - For seasoning the outside of the bird.
complete instructions below
Roasted Turkey Legs with Sage Butter
Yield: 4 turkey legs
Day Before: 2-3 hours, passive
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 60 min
Ready: 75 min
Ingredients
4 turkey legs
sage butter, recipe below
sage salt
coconut oil, slightly warmed
Sage Butter and Salt
1/2 stick (2 oz.) organic pasture butter, left out to soften
24 fresh sage leaves
Himalayan pink salt
Instructions
A day ahead, in a toaster oven set very low (150-175 degrees), dry the sage leaves until they are crisp and brittle, 2-3 hours. Crumble them in a small bowl and add an equal part salt. Whip half of this mixture into the butter and reserve the rest. Roll the herbed butter in parchment paper and place in the freezer.
Take the sage butter out of the freezer and cut into coins. Make slices in the skin of the turkey legs and place the butter coins in between the skin and the meat. Preheat the broiler.
Line a shallow roasting dish with aluminum foil and add the turkey legs. Rub the legs on both sides with the oil and the sage salt, and broil for 12-15 minutes on each side, until a crunchy skin forms. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and cook for another 30-35 minutes until done.
