Brett's Turducken Adventure



For Thanksgiving 2003, I decided to make a Turducken. For those who haven't heard of this creation before, a turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck stuffed with a de-boned chicken. Considerable amounts of seasoning and stuffing are used between bird layers, so you can pretty much get an entire Thanksgiving meal in each slice.

My experience was that creating a turducken is an immense amount of work, and the resulting dish is somewhat disappointing. For starters, the recipes I referenced called for huge amounts of Meat Magic, and that was too much Magic for my taste buds. A second problem was the bird skin. One article I had read described how the duck and chicken skins would "melt" into the meats, making for moist and flavorful poulty. My experience is that "melt" is the wrong verb. I think "vulcanize" is more appropriate. So standard eating proceduce for a slice of my turducken began with fishing out the layers of rubbery skin.

You can find a gallery of pictures from my turducken experience here.

As I write this in 2006, it has been almost three years since the events I'm describing, so my memory is a bit rusty. Thus, instead of a detailed blow-by-blow, I'll just list a few random observations and experiences.



My advice to potential turducken chefs:

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