Turducken

[swissmiss]

Do you know which one it was (cajungrocer has a few to choose from)? Is it something worth ordering or would it only be fun eating if you make it yourself?

[Fat Guy]

I think it was just the regular one "with cornbread dressing."

It's fun eating no matter who makes it, but I suppose it's more of an event if you do it yourself. We were discussing it and decided the better move might be to treat it like whole-hog barbecue. In other words, make the turkey, duck, and chicken separately, and make a couple of kinds of stuffing, and then cut everything into nice chunks and toss it all together.

[col klink]

It's fun to see it all stuffed together but you're right that if you cook, or even better - smoke, the birds separately you'll get much more flavor. Though my turducken was good, I've smoked those birds on different occasions and they were obviously smokier and had more going on.

[NeroW]

Aargh, just when I think I'm over turducken, it pops up again.

Not to quote myself, but . . .

Turducken got brought up in Poultry class today, so I had to revisit Klink's awesome Imagestation photos.

I think I am getting over turducken now. I have enough trouble with the birds on their own.

Maybe.

[slkinsey]

Oy, turducken! So 1998!

I made this a few times (Thanksgivings 1997-1999 I think)... actually quite easy to do if you're handy boning out poultry. And since it cooks at such a low temperature for such a long time, it is almost impossible to overcook. The one problem for people with only one oven is that it makes it very difficult to bake anything else for 12 hours (the turducken takes up most of the oven and the temperature is too low to be useful anyway).

The one trick I worked out is to strip out the turkey tenderloins and a fair bit of the breasts to make room. This meat can be saved for scallopine later, or used to augment some of the less-meaty areas.

[babyluck]

Fuck that, what about pigturducken? Or is that another thread?

This led me to, of all places, an anime blog with something to say about the subject:

Do we need such filthy excess? Turducken is something Caligula would serve to Imelda Marcos, with a centerpiece of dessicated pig spleen shaped like a swan, stuffed with alligator eggs and live doves: "Turducken for everybody! Save room for dessert: chocolate-covered slave boys on rose petals. Now, Imelda, no orgy 'til you finish your lark's tongues."

Ha! Sounds like she's read the Satyricon. Also reminds me of a Glorious Food party I heard about...

[albie]

With all due respect to all you Turducken fans out there, the whole exercise seems so pointless, all the labor and high risk of failure to produce a gastronomic Frankenstein, a real redneck culinary abomination.

[slkinsey]

With all due respect to all you Turducken fans out there, the whole exercise seems so pointless, all the labor and high risk of failure to produce a gastronomic Frankenstein, a real redneck culinary abomination.

I don't know why you would say this.

#1. There is not a high risk of failure. The margin for error with a turducken is significantly lower than it is for regular roasted turkey.

#2. Whether or not it is a "redneck culinary abomination" strikes me as a matter of taste. I wouldn't say turducken was inherrently "Southern low-class." One could easily make a turducken where the stuffings were mushroom duxelles and a truffled forcemeat, and in fact I have done just that on occasion.

Now... I'm over the whole turducken thing, but I still think ballotines are an interesting idea. These days I cook my breasts and legs separately when making turkey, but it makes a lot of sense to cook any festive whole bird as a ballotine. Not only will it cook more evenly, but it is easier and more elegant to carve at the table.

[FistFullaRoux]

IMHO, (Hi there, I'm a newbie - and a Cajun) turduckens are OK, but not worth the effort. Same thing with blackened anything. It's what the tourists eat. Fried turkey, or better yet, rotisserie turkey like my step-dad does is far better. (Basic grocery store bird, injected with like a pound of melted butter, and sprinkled with basic seasoning. Heart attack on a plate, but fine chow.)

It is an execise in excess, as stated earlier. If you want good boneless bird for less than 20 people, get a boneless stuffed chicken. They are stuffed with eveything from cornbread dressing to broccoli to crawfish, and they cook in less than an hour, for less than 15 bucks. Feeds 4 nicely (with sides). They are available in the chain groc stores in south LA (Winn Dixie, Piggly Wiggly, etc), you can mail-order them, or check with the meat department where you shop. They should be able to order them fairly easily. I like Hebert's Meat Market in Maurice, LA. They do mail order.

When you go to south Louisiana, it's fun to watch tourists eating superpowdered bengiets and try to choke down chickory. I'm eating Meche's or Krispy Kreme and having Community - Although I am particular about that.

[NeroW]

Turducken just makes me laugh my ass off.

I don't know why.

[maggiethecat]

Turducken just makes me laugh my ass off.

I don't know why.

Er...

"Sounds like?"

[NeroW]

Turducken just makes me laugh my ass off.

I don't know why.

Er...

"Sounds like?"

[Human Bean]

Having started this thread awhile ago, I'd like to declare that the turducken fad is just so OVER, especially now that you can buy prepared ones that you only have to heat.

But I doubt that this'll happen.

The new fad (even though it's been going on for awhile) is deep-fried turkeys. My local retailer just put up this year's display of turkey fryers.

But this is mainly a cheap excuse to again post a link to Alton Brown's words on turkey-frying (scroll down to the bottom).

...before you pour 3-5 gallons of perfectly flammable hydrocarbons into that big, wobbly, top heavy pot on Thanksgiving morn, you might want to think about what other products around your home can be connected with the words “engulfed” and “flames”.

[IrishCream]

Hmmm...well fried turkeys are also soooooooo over! Thank goodness, because they were never very good to start with. Yeah, they are juicy, but that juice is fat, folks. Fried turkeys are greasy! (And yes, I lived in Houston for the past 20 years and I am married to a Cajun.)

If you see it on Food TV you can figure it's soooooo over. Me, I am sticking with brining.

Edit to add: The skin on fried turkeys sucks...so if you are a crisp skin fan, don't bother.

Edited September 12, 2003 by IrishCream (log)

[Toliver]

Hmmm...well fried turkeys are also soooooooo over!  Thank goodness, because they were never very good to start with.  Yeah, they are juicy, but that juice is fat, folks.  Fried turkeys are greasy!  (And yes, I lived in Houston for the past 20 years and I am married to a Cajun.) 

If you see it on Food TV you can figure it's soooooo over.  Me, I am sticking with brining.

Edit to add:  The skin on fried turkeys sucks...so if you are a crisp skin fan, don't bother.

Apparently you and I have different methods of deep frying a turkey because "greasy" is not a word I would use to describe the finished product.

In fact, slicing into the finished product is similar to slicing through a good, moist pork roast. This took us by surprise our first year in deep frying a turkey since we were expecting "lightness" like the meat of an oven-roasted bird. Instead, it's juicy and dense.

Usually deep frying kits come with a thermometer with the point being to maintain the temperature of the oil at 375º F. At that temperature, the oil is hot enough to "seal" the outside helping to prevent the food from sucking in the oil (yes, it does absorb some but it's relatively a small amount at that temperature). If the temperature falls below 375º, anything you fry will absorb the oil.

Yes, the skin can be greasy in parts, but I liken it to pork cracklin's. Imagine really crisp bacon. "Crisp" is the exact word to use when describing it. My brother's and I fight over it. No, it's not the same "crisp" as oven-"Crisp", but it can be described as such. It's also extra tasty because of our additions to the turkey.

We inject our turkeys with usually a store-bought "injection juice" the night before cooking and then when prepping the turkey for the actually frying, we also cover it with a good, spicy rub. In fact, the first year, after deep frying the turkey and seeing that the rub had come off into the oil during the frying, basically seasoning it, we told my niece to ransack my mom's freezer of all the frozen french fries and onion rings and anything else she could find that we could deep fry. Talk about great hors d'oeuvres!

The wings do get toasted, but not being a fan of wings in the first place, I don't see that as such a big deal.

I believe the largest size turkey you can put in one of those fryers is a 16-pounder and we usually max out on poundage. You can't beat the cook time, either. What is it...2 & 1/2 minutes per pound? In just under 40 minutes, your turkey is done.

We don't deep fry a turkey every year. Last year my brother smoked it (just incredible!) and this year I will try to introduce the subject of "brining" to my family to see if they will want to experiment.

As for us, it doesn't really matter what's "in" and what's "over"...we like to do what works and, more importantly, what tastes good.

[hannnah]

Ok. Someone is taking this whole critters-stuffed-in-other-critters thing waaaaay too far.

Fowl de Cochon - or as it's otherwise known, pig stuffed with turducken stuffed with quail.

edit: left out important word. bad brain, no biscuit.

Edited September 12, 2003 by hannnah (log)

[col klink]

. . . and this year I will try to introduce the subject of "brining" to my family to see if they will want to experiment.

Heh, heh.

For years my mother would roast almost inedible turkeys. In high school I would ask leading questions like "how often do you baste the turkey mom?" and I'd receive answer akin to this: "Silly Klink, nobody's basted a turkey in 20 years!" The next year I'd secretely baste the bird while she was taking a nap. Eventually, I just started doing it myself and nobody's looked back.

I usually host a large Thanksgiving dinner, the last three of which have been in Seattle. The first year I roasted a bird (didn't have the smoker yet) and my buddy deep fried a couple of turkeys. As you'd might imagine, the fried birds won hands down. The next year it was fried birds versus a smoked bird. A couple of people tasted the fried birds as a comparison just to be nice, but the smoked bird totally kicked the fried bird's ass. Which kind of sucked because I didn't have any leftovers!

By the way, our fried birds were juicy and tender but never greasy. The skin was pretty crisp too if I remember correctly. If frying weren't so dangerous and smoking didn't taste better, I'd definitely fry.

Remember kids, never cook turkey without brining it first. Never!

[Toliver]

For years my mother would roast almost inedible turkeys...I'd secretely baste the bird while she was taking a nap. Eventually, I just started doing it myself and nobody's looked back.

I'm a little baster, too, since way back.

My mom's turkeys were never bad, but were fantastic once she started using those Reynold's Oven Roasting Bags (turkey sized). The turkey turns out incredibly moist and cooks in a shorter amount of time than the regular oven method. When it's done it literally falls off the bone.

Funny story: The first year she used the oven bag method, she went to check on how far along the turkey was using the "wiggle" method. Using a potholder and grabbing onto the leg through the bag she gave it a wiggle and the leg bone slipped right out of the meat. She yelled out to all of us, "Dinner's going to be a lot earlier this year!"

Her one complaint about the oven bags is that the skin doesn't crisp up like it does using the regular oven roasting method. I don't mind it that much since the meat comes out so incredibly juicy. There's nothing worse than dry turkey.

"...the smoked bird totally kicked the fried bird's ass. Which kind of sucked because I didn't have any leftovers! 

Word. It was the same with us last year.

One good thing, though, is that since we invite so many people over for Thanksgiving dinner, my mom roasts a turkey in the oven while we do either the smoked or deep fried turkey. Then when she sends people home with leftovers, we hide the "good" turkey so she won't give the good stuff away. We're shameful, I tell ya!

[mixmaster b]

All this turkey prejudice!!!! I am shocked!

I have made a turducken from scratch. It was really fun and came out very well. I would do it again if I was feeling ambitious and had some helpers. Sampling a storebought version holds no interest for me. While I feel fine about storebought bread and other staples, I avoid storebought prepared foods, as I think homemade is much better. (Plus, a turducken calls for at least a pound of butter, and I bet a storebought version would have margarine subbed, and I have a big problem with margarine!)

I deep fried turkeys 2 years in a row, and they were also very very good, not greasy, just moist and delicious. You do need to think ahead and have an extra turkey carcass or lots of turkey pieces so you can make stock for gravy. But that adds to the fun.

And as for brining, a turkey should never be roasted unbrined. If you are going to roast it, brine it first!!! (You get juicy inside and crispy outside.)

I have not grilled a turkey, nor have I smoked one, but I would love to sample either method, and might this year.

There are many ways to cook a turkey, as there are many ways to cook a chicken or any other thing. Most methods can yield wonderful results is done well, and all methods can be disastrous if poorly handled.

Who give a crap if the method is "sooo last Thankgiving", as long as you like the results?

[mixmaster b]

I usually host a large Thanksgiving dinner, the last three of which have been in Seattle. The first year I roasted a bird (didn't have the smoker yet) and my buddy deep fried a couple of turkeys. As you'd might imagine, the fried birds won hands down. The next year it was fried birds versus a smoked bird. A couple of people tasted the fried birds as a comparison just to be nice, but the smoked bird totally kicked the fried bird's ass. Which kind of sucked because I didn't have any leftovers!  :

Col-

Have you described the smoking method elsewhere? Could you provide a link?

Sounds lovely!

[Human Bean]

I have made a turducken from scratch.  It was really fun and came out very well.  I would do it again if I was feeling ambitious and had some helpers.

(In a desperate, and futile, attempt to keep the thread focused on turducken, even though he deliberately went off-topic above, HB says):

"Ambitious" and "helpers" perhaps says it all. I believe that I said somewhere upthread that turducken sounds like a good concept, but it's just too much work for what you get. Which is not to say that it's not worthwhile, just that that there are other methods that work at least as well (if not better) but are much more feasable.

Prepared turducken - margarine? [Jinmyo] Gah. [/Jinmyo]

[Toliver]

I usually host a large Thanksgiving dinner, the last three of which have been in Seattle. The first year I roasted a bird (didn't have the smoker yet) and my buddy deep fried a couple of turkeys. As you'd might imagine, the fried birds won hands down. The next year it was fried birds versus a smoked bird. A couple of people tasted the fried birds as a comparison just to be nice, but the smoked bird totally kicked the fried bird's ass. Which kind of sucked because I didn't have any leftovers!  :

Col-

Have you described the smoking method elsewhere? Could you provide a link?

Sounds lovely!

I believe col klink will be smoking a turkey in his impending eGCI smoking class, if I am not mistaken.

[col klink]

Thanks Tolliver, I will be teaching a course on how to smoke a turkey (and maybe brisket as well) on the 27th. It will be a great precurser for Thanksgiving because you'll need need stock from a prior bird to make gravy.

[mixmaster b]

Excellent, thanks! I am looking forward to it.

[NeroW]

Turducken is never over.

It's funny!