Instructions

1. Turkey breast is drier than chicken to begin with, so this is a recipe where over-running the machine shows up immediately as dust. Trim it back to clean muscle and keep the strips on the generous side of 6 mm.
2. Half-freeze the breast before it meets a knife. Poultry that is still soft drags and tears instead of slicing, and a torn edge is where a strip goes brittle first.
3. Warm the honey into the soy before you add anything else. Cold honey sits in a lump at the bottom of the bowl and refuses to combine with a thin liquid.
4. Stir in the sriracha and the pepper flakes. Sriracha brings its own vinegar and garlic with it, which is why there is none listed separately.
5. Coat the strips, seal them and leave them in the fridge overnight, turning the bag once. Any less and the flavour sits on the surface only.
6. Let the strips drip before they go on the trays, and space them well. Honey that pools under a strip will caramelise onto the mesh and take the strip with it when you lift.
7. Dehydrate at 71 °C for 7 hours. Poultry goes in raw, so this setting is not negotiable.
8. Test a strip after it has cooled for a minute. Honey stays pliable while it is warm, so a strip that seems underdone on the tray is often exactly right by the time it reaches your hand — it should fold without breaking and show no wet sheen inside.
9. Cool it completely and store it airtight. The honey in this one draws moisture out of the air, so a bag left open on the bench turns the batch sticky within days.