Did anyone watch Chef ?Prudhomme? (an odd duck himself) show on PBS
yesterday? It was quite interesting how they make Turducken.
They take a very sharp fillet knife, slice straight down the back bone
of the birds and carefully fillet away with just the tip of the knife
the back bone breast bone ribs of each bird-never cutting thru the skins
again.
The duck and the chicken also have the
wings removed entirely and the leg/thigh bones removed. They are
boneless.
The turkey has the thigh bone removed as well but they leave the legs
and wings alone. The turkey is laid skin side down, opened like a book.
First they take stuffing and spread it across the open turkey pressing
it down slightly so it looks like a half inch to inch of foam
insulation. On top of that they place the opened duck, skin side down to
the stuffing below. They insulate the duck with another layer of
stuffing. Repeat with the chicken.
It looks a mess but comes together in an amazing way. One chef held a
small shallow roasting pan, same size as the turkey, at the ready. The
other chef grasps the edges of the turkey "book" and closes the book
encasing the duck and chicken pages inside. It looked exactly like
tightening a woman's corset (Downton Abbey) only with no hooks, eyes, or
lacing.
DON'T LET GO LOL
Quickly he flips Big Bird over into the shallow pan tucking the turkey
skin flaps down under allowing the low sides of the roasting pan to
"straightjacket" the turducken and hold it together. Then he also tucks
in the turkey legs and turkey wings.
They used 3 separate stuffing recipes.
They bake it at an absurdly low temp for 8 hours, having placed the too
small pan inside a larger roasting pan to contain the overflowing
juices.
Carefully remove the cooked wings without opening the book. Then slice
thru the breasts and serve with gravy.
What I found most interesting was the baked result looked exactly like
our normal T-day turkeys.
My thought was that for those of you who like stuffing cooked in the
bird, following these deboning steps with a turkey only, would allow you
to get a larger amount of stuffing inside the turkey and it would still
look the same to your guests only they will be shocked when you slice
and serve.
