Turducken! At Last!

I should be packing, so naturally I am occupying my time doing other things like composing handwritten letters, paying bills, and blogging. In my defense I have already packed twelve boxes tonight (yes most of them are wine boxes, and most of them are filled with books, but twelve boxes is twelve boxes).

On the bright side, I am feeling rather inspired to write, which is any case cannot be considered a bad thing, even if it is keeping me from doing something productive like packing up my life.

But I’ve been feeling rather guilty lately, because I have yet to blog about the Turducken adventure of 2009. I really meant to do it the week after I got home, and then, per usual, life just kept happening. Friends were in town, work got busy, I found other inspiration, and other distractions, and I didn’t have all the pictures, and so the Turducken got swept under the rug. Out of sight, but not out of mind for me, and so here I am a month later, finally ready to write about the poultry palooza that was my Christmas.

It all started out as kind of a joke. Turducken. I was giving my friend/ brother-in-law by marriage a bad time about batching it alone on Thanksgiving, and I told him that he should make a turducken. I mean it is sort of like the ultimate man meal, meat inside of meat, inside of meat. We both sort of laughed it off, but agreed that it sounded delicious. And then I got to thinking “how hard could it really be?”

I’m slightly appalled that I even came up with the idea of making a turducken. Though I am not a vegetarian, I don’t actually cook or even eat that much meat. I have several friends of the Vegetarian/vegan persuasion, and so when we all get together for dinner parties, meat it usually optional. BYOB, and BYOM. So there I was, the girl who is totally grossed out by raw chicken, and paranoid about contracting salmonella, contemplating making the ultimate poultry dish. This was much more than a raw chicken breast. Three whole birds, what the hell was I thinking?

As the days went on, I felt as though I was being taunted by the idea of turducken. Suddenly it was everywhere, on radio shows, the food network, references to turducken were everywhere from NPR to Top Chef, and I began to wonder if it was a sign that I should be paying attention to. So on a whim, I asked my sister-in-law how her family would feel if I made a turducken for Christmas dinner. I mean, it was already going to be a year of new traditions, as I was spending the holiday with my brother’s in-laws rather than my immediate family, so why not try something completely new? So I got the approval (though I am still sort of wondering if everyone thought I was kidding) and started researching recipes.

At first I was contemplating how long it was going to take to de-bone three birds. At some point it dawned on me, that I am extremely accident prone, and considering my luck in 2009, I decided that de-boning 3 birds was just a trip to the ER on Christmas morning waiting to happen. So though, it may be considered cheating, I simply asked the butcher to de-bone the birds for me. A little batting of the eyelashes, and I had myself a de-boned duck and chicken ready for me to pick up. There was no going back, the birds were ordered, and we were committed to making this “Cluster-Cluck.”

Flash forward to Christmas morning, 6:45 AM AKA Turducken time. I have never been a morning person, let alone a morning person who assembles poultry before coffee, but I was on Christmas. Nothing says Christmas like holiday PJ’s, reindeer antlers, and raw chicken. (clearly I was not thinking about having a blog worthy photo-op.) The process actually went a lot quicker than I thought it would, in mere moments the birds were cut, seasoned, stacked and ready for stitching. I’m not going to lie, I pretty much took a back seat on the assembly process. I scooped stuffing in between the layers, and watched the madness taking place, and was then the head seamstress when it was time put everything back together.

 

 

 

 

When we were done, I was shocked and amazed that it actually looked like a normal turkey! Against all odds, we didn’t manage to fuck it up, and considering the two masterminds behind the project, I think we were all a little amazed. As far as flavoring goes, we improvised a little. Butter, garlic, rosemary, beer, salt, pepper, other various spices. The trifecta of birds went in the oven at 7:45. Christmas continued as normal. Presents, cocktails , coffee, copious amounts of Rockband, and turducken anticipation. Waiting, hoping, praying that the turducken would actually get up to temp (at least 165, but preferably 180) in time for afternoon eating. It actually cooks at a fairly decent speed, I think mainly because most of the bones are removed. Of course you leave in the wings and drumsticks on the turkey to keep up appearances. We could have opted for the “log” version, where you basically make a roast out of the birds, but damn it, as my first turducken attempt I at least wanted it to be pretty. And it was!

 

 

Complete success! Though we had a few fuddy-duddy’s who claimed that they couldn’t really tell a difference between a turducken and normal turkey, a majority of us were thrilled with the taste, and overall experience. I’m not sure if it will be a new tradition in the Brisbin/Nooy family, but I think it will give us something to live up to each year.