It had a funny name, turducken. And its recipe promised magic and delight:
"It's a lot of fun to let your guests think you're serving them a regular holiday turkey. When you start to carve the 'turkey,' they'll be quite surprised to see you cut through its 'bones!'" crooned the recipe on Chef Paul Prudhomme's Web site. "What is magical is the way people eating your turducken will feel about your food!"
Turducken is a deboned and stuffed chicken rolled inside a deboned and stuffed duck, rolled inside a deboned and stuffed turkey. It's not clear who made the first one, but a lot of credit goes to celebrity Chef Paul Prudhomme. According to his recipe, turducken takes eight hours to cook, feeds 24 to 30 people and is a big barrel of laughs!
"We get letters every year from 'Turducken Teams' -- friends and relatives who gather together to make (and eat!) their Turduckens as a group activity! It might be fun to take pictures along the way so you can look back and have 'Turducken' memories year-round!" his recipe said.
Chef Paul's directive made me giddy with excitement. Not only would turducken spread joy like Santa Claus, it would build team spirit! Fresh from the success of my first Thanksgiving turkey, I decided to tackle turducken, my poultry Everest.
Beverley Wang debones a turkey in her Concord, N.H. kitchen. The 16-lb. turkey lost six pounds after being deboned. (AP Photo/Josh Irwin)
I set to work on a Saturday morning with two friends -- Erica Feldman and Danielle Kronk -- 26 lbs. of poultry, and joy in my heart.
With the turkey needing time to thaw, we set upon the 6-lb. duckling like three eager lion cubs. None of us had ever deboned birds before, and we felt enlightened -- empowered -- as we pried the duckling's skeleton from its flesh-bound prison. Wrenching a wing bone loose, I let loose out a warrior's roar and waved it above my head.
But deboning a bird is like bungee jumping or swimming with sharks. After you've tried it and the adrenaline wanes, you may not want to do it ever again.
With the duckling finished, our triumphant exploration soon became a gruesome chore. My teammates helped me tear through a 4-lb. chicken, then left for other engagements. Alone, frazzled, I was left to deal with the 16-lb. turkey.
Beverley Wang whacks a turkey's leg with a hammer to break the bone. (AP Photo/Josh Irwin)
Solo turkey evisceration is nasty work: did I mention I had to break the turkey's legs with a hammer?
DID I MENTION I HAD TO BREAK THE TURKEY'S LEGS WITH A HAMMER?
After deboning three birds, I collapsed into bed and slept for three hours. But not even sweet slumber could erase my horror. Like Lady MacBeth, I could not wash my sins away. In my case however, it was the scent of raw turkey flesh -- not blood -- that marked my guilty hands.
Make no mistake, I'm not squeamish about food. Growing up in a Taiwanese household in Vancouver, Canada, I ate pigs' knuckles, preserved eggs and fish-head soup while other kids ate peanut butter and jelly. Some of my earliest memories involve raw seafood: my father cutting sashimi from wild salmon, my mother feeding me raw oysters on the half shell.
Perhaps I was brainwashed by the Food Network, where kitchens stay spotless and cooks never cry. In my mind's eye, I had an image of myself serving turducken in a warmly lit Crate-and-Barrel kitchen, as a circle of beaming friends gathered round. But as dinnertime drew near, I realized I was no smiling chef, but a fowl Dr. Frankenstein.
To the unknowing diner, a slice of turducken may be a delicious spectacle, three layers of roast meat separated by layers of rich stuffing. But this team took no joy from turducken, which melds the flesh of three birds like a set of mutated Ukrainian dolls. As dinnertime approached, we found we had spent too much time making turducken to look forward to eating it.
But eat it we did. Like a dinner guest at Dr. Moreau's house, I dutifully ate one slice, taking no seconds.
The next day, I packed up some turducken and brought it to work. But lunch came and went and I left the turducken alone. For dinner, I ignored the turducken again, opting for a cleansing meal of steamed broccoli and fish. Turducken lingered untouched for a couple of days longer in the fridge, an innocent victim of its own excess. Then I stuck a hunk in the freezer (just in case), and wastefully threw the rest away.
Turducken tips:
- Debone the smaller birds first. Chef Paul suggests deboning the turkey first, because it is largest and the bones are easy to find. Good point, but the turkey also is the turducken's outermost layer, and any cuts will show. If you are inexperienced with deboning fowl, use the chicken and duck as your practice birds, since any mistakes you make will be rolled up and hidden in the turkey.
- Don't play with your food. With bones removed and long slits down their middles, deboned turkey, duck and chicken look almost cute, like baby snowsuits of meat. Their limbs make squishy sounds when you squeeze and push them. But don't do it! The less you handle your birds, the more you may want to eat it when it's finished.
- Plan ahead. Unless you want to have a dinner party at 11 p.m. on a Sunday, choose the time you plan to eat and count backwards. It takes about an hour to assemble turducken and eight hours to roast. For example, if you want to eat at 7 p.m., get that bird in the oven by at 10:30 a.m. On the first day of turducken, give yourself four to five hours to debone the birds and three hours to cook the stuffing at a leisurely pace. Consider scheduling two hours for a nap between deboning and stuffing. If you have time, chop vegetables and bake cornbread for the stuffings a day in advance.
- Get help. Physically, psychologically, you shouldn't make turducken alone. It's also not a good idea to make turducken if you live in a studio apartment.
Find it online:
Paul Prudhomme's turducken recipe
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asap contributor Beverley Wang still cringes when she thinks about turducken.
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