And you thought it was a myth. Worse you thought it was impossible to make. Well, you were wrong. Dead wrong. This past Tuesday Aimee, Mark (a good supperclub buddy) and I took on the task of making a turducken from scratch for the Gastronauts. The Gastronauts is a club for adventurous eaters who explore the astounding variety of global cuisines in the far, and near, reaches of NYC. Their reason for being is very similar to ours. It’s just as much about the company as it’s about the food. So, when they asked us to host a dinner on the deck we were overjoyed.
The theme was Creole/Cajun cuisine. We had the standards; Jambalya, Crawfish Tails, Cracklins, Black Eyed Peas just to name a few of the 12 plus dishes. To add to the NOLA effect the mercury jumped to 103 that day setting records. The full review of pics can be found on the Gastronauts site. I thought I would chronicle the turducken steps below so you can see what a massive undertaking this was. Just to put your head in the right place we started with a 5lbs chicken, a 5 lbs duck and a 30lbs turkey. The first thing you need to do is debone all the birds WHILE keeping it whole. Here we go.
Step 1: Get some poultry
Step 2: Debone the duck and the chicken
Step 3: Debone the turkey (This takes muscle)
Step 4: Layer and stuff. Each layer gets a different stuffing.
Step 5: Sew her up
Step 6: Bake it for a REALLY long time
Step 7: Cool it and slice it
Step 8: Enjoy a cross section of three birds and three stuffings in one bite
Of course there is more to this than the few pictures above. For those of you who want to see the full shoot below is the slideshow of the entire process from multiple angles.
July 9th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
john madden would be proud. hope there’s video of this somewhere.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
This totally changes the game, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving!
July 20th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Let me tell you Dean it’s not for the faint of heart. Lots of work. Let us know if you decide to go for it. It’s a butterball of fun ;)
November 22nd, 2010 at 11:53 am
I am attempting a turducken on Nov 28th… I have talked about it for a while and it didn’t happen last year because we didn’t order the birds in time. I am getting them deboned by a butcher as that’s the hardest part of the job I don’t want to take on… Im so excited for this ode to fowl.
November 24th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
It is the hardest part of the job but it is also the most fun. If you have any desire to give it a try I recommend you do it yourself. The two tips are this. 1.Never cut the skin to cut out a bone. That is what holds the bird together once all bones are gone. The first cut down the spine you cut skin and that’s it. 2.Don’t try and save every part of the meat. You will be left with more meat on the removed bones than you probably think you should. Aim to get close but do what you have to in order to cut out the bone. Good luck with it. Let us know how it turns out.
November 27th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Hey xifrr7vtcd, very interesting post, it really got me thinking. Thank you. 7fa6b v3at5
May 20th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
OMG, this is amazing! My family was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner once where turducken was being served, and for some forgotten reason, we couldn’t make it… I’ve always regretted that. Tho’ I believe the hosts ordered the turducken from somewhere, already assembled. More power to you!