Turducken!

[Poots]

So, my friend approaches me with an idea. It's his brother's birthday the week before thanksgiving and he wants to have a dinner party.....and he wants me to help him cook a Turducken! I show him the various threads from Egullet about the topic matter, and we also surf Paul Prudhomme info. Some suggested that we buy a turducken already made.....we scoffed at the idea. Some suggested we have the butcher debone the birds.....we took umbrage at the implied questioning of our knive skills(i DID read the EGCi on Knife skills) . We started working on the birds at 5 PM Friday night. We put the actual beast into the oven at 3:30 AM Sat morning.......The beast emerged at sometime around 4:30-5 PM Sat evening. Unfortunately i suffer from the occasional onslaught of stupidity and forgot my camera for Friday night. I also forgot it on Sat, but i stole a friend's and took a couple of pictures. Here they are in gruesome uncut glory.....

Blessing of the Bird(s)

About to Carve

Posing with the Beast

Split Turducken with a finger

Split Turducken

1/2 a Turducken

Beware an Italian bearing Prosecco

What do you drink with Turducken?......well i sure don't know, but we started off with a couple of bottles of Prosecco, went on to some Beajoulais Noveau, and then to something or other from Pic St Loupe.....

The 3 different stuffings inside the bird were chestnut and shitake, Cornbread, and Sausage.

[cak]

I am extremely impressed! For years my step-son has been hounding me to make a turducken for Christmas dinner. Last year, he finally ordered one, taking the coward's way out! Although novel in concept, I was not all that taken with the actual outcome from a taste point of view. I wonder whether your home-made beast was better? Your pictures are great - but what did it taste like?

[slkinsey]

Very cool pictures, Poots. I especially like the use of chestnut stuffing. I've made around 4-5 turduckens in my day, and enjoyed them. They are certainly impressive when you slice them up on the table, and practically foolproof once you get them put together.

There is another extensive thread on turducken here to which your interesting remarks and pictures will probably be appended for further conversation.

So... what did you think about it? Did you like it? Was it worth the trouble, or more of a novelty? I have to say that I'm personally glad I made them. I found it an interesting challenge and I thought they tasted great. But, that said, I doubt I'll be making another one.

[guajolote]

"fuckin' turducken"

[tommy]

awesome, poots. and thanks for the pics!

[fifi]

Awesome.

BTW... Jeffrey Steingarten has a funny piece on turducken in this book It Must've Been Something I Ate. Just for historical interest he did some pretty extensive research and concludes that Paul Prudhomme did indeed "invent" the turducken.

[Poots]

Unless i'm going for the awe of presentation, i doubt i'll make one again. It tasted very good. I wasn't expecting it to taste like ambrosia, so i wasn't disappointed. We didn't brine any of the birds, and i think the turkey would have been a little better if we had. It was interesting comparing the different stuffings with each kind of meat. The whole experience was a good time. There are lots of small stories that occurred throughout the night. For instance, the recipe for the chestnut stuffing just said chestnuts, but later we learned it had meant pre-roasted chestnuts. We then had to X them and roast them for a bit. We also made a Huge pot of stock from all the bones/carcasses we pulled out of the birds to use for gravy and stuffing. We had a few injuries as well. I'm working my way through owning my own cookware and one thing i do not own is a good set of knives. It was no problem b/c we were at my buddy's house and he has a set of Wusthof or Henckels. The only problem was that if you're used to working with cheap and/or dull knives, you have to be extra careful when using a set of good and very sharp knives. The amount of strength and pressure used to chop varies greatly between the two.....hence the somewhat shorter thumb i now possess..... Around 2:30 AM after quite a few beers and general exhaustion i took it upon myself to taste the stock. I mean, it had been off boil for a couple of minutes....how hot could a GIANT pot of stock be? My tongue still hurts.....

At the 11 th hour, we realized we had neither buthers string nor something easy to close the turkey with. Solution......soaked some bamboo skewers in water and while they were soaking we somewhat sewed the thing closed with.........wait for it.......dental floss(unflavored and waxless of course!)

[colestove]

AL Roker and a chef (whose name I don`t remember) did a turduken on the TODAY show late last week. The chef said *get your butcher to do the boning,unless you want to have a mess and take a long time.* It did look good but I kike your stuffings better than the generic spinach he did.

colestove

[slkinsey]

We also made a Huge pot of stock from all the bones/carcasses we pulled out of the birds to use for gravy and stuffing.

This is, IMO, one of the major benefits of roasting deboned poultry. I almost never roast poultry without pulling out at least the backbone and breastbone.

[Mayhaw Man]

Nice work. It looks great and I wish that I could have tasted that chestnut stuffing.

I did it once (Prudhomme's Recipe, had someone else do the deboning, but kept the carcasses for stock) and while it was an interesting experiment-I am really glad I live in Turducken land so I am not forced to do it again.

[col klink]

After I did mine (I brined the birds and then smoked the turducken) I came to the conclusion that it was a lot of fun and made a really cool show. However, I've done the birds seperately and those came out better than the turducken. Primarly because without stuffing and an open cavity, the bird is smokier. But the turducken presentation was worth the effort.

edit: When deboning, I'd do more to butterfly the breast and leg muscles so there is a more uniform layer of meat instead of trying to get all six breasts to line up nicely. What my turducken there were parts that looked really good and parts that didn't.

Edited November 24, 2003 by col klink (log)

[Cusina]

That is impressive and you all look so damn happy about it too.

Thanks for the great pictures.