Pulled turkey leg sandwiches and a caprese salad

Today’s cook was kinda fun since I was trying something new; pulled turkey legs. This is just the second time I have smoked turkey legs. The first time I didn’t like them too well.
I bought 6 Honeysuckle fresh turkey legs. It said all natural but not sure what that could mean!

I made up ½ gallon of brine, a scant ½ cup kosher salt, a good ½ cup of brown sugar, 2 Tbs. molasses, 2 Tbs. soy sauce, and 2 Tbs. liquid smoke. Ok so I used liquid smoke! They were in the brine for 10 hours before smoking.

I rinsed the legs & let dry some in a colander. I then coated well with some Penzey’s Galena Street rub. I did them on smoke mode P5 for one hour & was holding pretty good at 170 deg. I then went to P3 for ½ hour, then to P0 & was at 225-230 deg. for the rest of the cook. After 2 hrs. 10 min. the first leg was at or over 165 deg IT. I pulled them as they reached temp and took another 20 minutes.

I covered with a towel for 15 minutes then removed the towel. Another 20 min. they were cool enough to handle so I removed the skin and pulled the meat. I nuked the skin until crisp for a cooks treat! Now that was a chore pulling the meat. I ended up doing more chopping than pulling but got some nice looking meat for sandwiches.

For my sandwiches I toasted the buns w/a little olive oil in a skillet, topped with the turkey and a slice of Swiss cheese. All went under the broiler to melt the cheese.

I made a caprese salad, romaine lettuce w/ a splash of red wine vinegar, a slice of tomato, some mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, a little ELOO, and gray salt & pepper.

The sandwiches were good, great flavor but I thought the meat was a little on the tough side. Unless I can get fall off the bone turkey meat I think I will stick with pork & chicken for my pulled meat sandwiches. The salad was great!

Brined and seasoned

On the smoker

Ready to pull

Pulled and chopped

Moking the sandwiches

My salad

My sandwich

Smokin Don