For New Year's Eve dinner, we planned to order a Turducken from the Food Network-approved Cajun Grocer website. However, the cost of the beast plus shipping, turned out to be rather high, so my friend and I decided to make our own. It was an intimidating undertaking, but we succeeded. The finished product absolutely justified the several hours of prep work. Here's how we did it.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (3-4 pounds)
1 whole duck (5 pounds)
1 whole turkey (12 pounds)
1 pound of pork sausage
4 boxes of Jiffy cornbread, prepared according to package
~ 1.5 cups broth (any kind will do)
chopped fresh sage, about 10 leaves
salt & pepper
olive oil
Equipment:
large roasting pan with handles
butcher's twine
3 skewers (wood ones need to be soaked in water overnight)
meat thermometer (ideally a digital probe)
The day before you plan to serve the Turducken, de-bone all three birds. This site has easy-to-follow instructions and simple diagrams. You'll need a sharp knife; kitchen shears and a co-cook also are really helpful. Begin with the chicken, especially if you're a novice at de-boning poultry: the chicken is in the middle of the Turducken, and no one will be able to see if you've made a mess out of the meat/skin. The chicken is also the easiest to manipulate, and it doesn't take much to pop its joints. Wrap the de-boned carcass in plastic wrap, and move on to the duck. Be forewarned that the duck is a bit greasy.
The de-boned duck will look like this:
>By now, you've de-boned two birds, so you'll be feeling pretty comfortable with the poultry anatomy by the time you get to the turkey. Take care not to break through its skin, as the turkey holds the whole mess together. *Do NOT remove the drumsticks and wings from the turkey.
Once you've finished preparing the birds, go ahead and make some cornbread. We simplified the situation by using only cornbread stuffing in our Turducken, instead of the 3 kinds the Paul Prudhomme uses in his epic recipe. We used four boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix, which produced two good-sized loaves.
This is about all you can do the day before. Do not pre-assemble the Turducken, the stuffing will get contaminated with bacteria by sitting in raw meat overnight.
The day you plan to serve the Turducken, start by making the stuffing. Brown the pork sausage in a skillet (do not drain off the fat), mix with cornbread pieces, sage, and enough broth to moisten the bread and bring it all together. Season with salt and pepper.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
To assemble the Turducken:
Lay out the turkey carcass, open and skin-side down:
Season the cavity with salt and pepper.
Spread the stuffing evenly over the cavity. Lay the duck carcass on top, skin-side down.
Season the cavity with S&P, spread stuffing evenly over the duck.
Lay the chicken carcass over stuffing, skin-side down.
Spread stuffing over the chicken. Bring up the sides of the chicken, seal with a skewer. Bring up the sides of the duck to cover the chicken, skewer closed.
Repeat with the turkey. Secure the bird bundle with butcher's twine and remove all skewers.
It is now officially a Turducken!
Place Turducken in the roasting pan so that it is seam-side down and breast-side up. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with a little olive oil. Cover the Turducken loosely with tinfoil to prevent over-browning.
Roast at 300 degrees for about 4 hours, or until the meat thermometer shows the internal temperature at 165 degrees. When it reaches about 140 degrees, remove the tinfoil to nicely brown the skin. Remember to baste it occasionally, about every 30-45 minutes.
After removing the Turducken from the oven, LET IT REST for at least 30 minutes before carving. Slice across the breast to show off those pretty layers:
The pan drippings and browned bits in the roasting pan make an excellent gravy, so just go for a simple flour/fat/water version, made right in the roasting pan on the stove.
This makes a hearty 12-14 servings, and the total cost of the ingredients came to about $55.
So there you have it. The Holy Grail of Culinary Projects can be achieved in a New York City apartment kitchen!
Thursday, January 04, 2007
The Last Meal of 2006: Turducken
Monday, November 13, 2006
Talking Turkey
Okay, so it's coming. One of the biggest eating holidays of the year. And the centerpiece is usually turkey. Turkey can be a tricky thing. It seems like you could cook birds of the same size for the same time and one will be dry, and the other raw. It can be tasty, but sometimes can be flavorless (a particular complaint of dry turkey). It seems confusing, no? Well, never fear, because here is a complete, easily adaptable, countless variations turkey recipe guaranteed to come out right every time. Unless your oven breaks, then I can't help you.
You will need:
A good quality roasting pan. I own this one , but any good heavy one will do.
A meat thermometer with an alert. There are lots of good ones out there.
A turkey of a size appropriate to your gathering, fresh and not frozen please!! My family gathering of 7 will happily cook a 20lb turkey, because sandwiches on Thanksgiving night is more required than tradition. All that lazing around makes you want leftovers!
Carrots, onions, and celery, 2 of each is good
chicken broth (or turkey broth, or veggie--whatever you like), 2 32oz. boxes or so.
Butter. Yes, it has to be butter. Trust me. I would recommend using a whole stick, because if you don't use the leftovers for gravy, it will taste amazing on bread.
Herbs of your choice, fresh or dried is not terribly important. These will be mixed with the butter.
About an hour before you cook, take the turkey out of the fridge. Wash it inside and out, pat it dry inside and out, and salt and pepper it. Place it on the roasting rack in the pan, and let it sit at RT for an hour. Use this hour to preheat the oven to 450. About 30' beforehand, soften some butter, and mix into the butter whatever herbs you'd like to flavor your bird with. I like using fresh thyme, or a mix of rosemary, thyme and garlic. If you are using fresh and NOT stuffing the turkey, place some sprigs of herb in the cavity. Carefully (VERY carefully) slide your hands in between the skin and breast of the bird, and loosen the skin. Generously rub the herb butter over the breast meat. Leaving pieces is OK, just don't shove chunks in and leave it. You want to get all the meat. This will take 4-6T of butter total, depending on bird size. Put a little butter on the skin of the bird if you like crispy skin; if not, leave it. Cut up your veggies, and scatter them in the roasting pan. Add enough broth just to cover the veggies; I would use about a box and a half of broth for my roasting pan, but once again, this is dependent on size.
Now, insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh, but DON'T TOUCH THE BONE (that is so important--ask me how I know). Try going parallel to the bone. Guidlelines say that the bird is DONE when the leg reaches 185 degrees, so you want to set your thermometer to go off when the meat reaches 175 degrees. Yes, you heard correctly. We'll get to this.
By now your oven should be fully preheated. Open it, and slide the bird in. Make sure (before you do the sliding) that your only rack in there is in the bottom 1/3 of the oven. Cook at 450 for 30'. After 30', turn the oven down to 350, and cook until the temperature alarm goes off. As a time estimate, an unstuffed bird takes about 12-15' per pound, and a stuffed one takes 18-22' a pound. This is also dependent on your oven--my mom's pretty shiny new oven cooked the turkey an hour faster than predicted. So time is an estimate only! Do not open the oven to baste the bird--this only lets heat out and makes the skin soggy. Only open the oven for two reasons: 1) the pan is getting dry and you need to add more broth, or 2) the turkey is browning faster than you like, so you need to tent it with tinfoil. NO BASTING!!
Once you take the bird out, pick up the rack and move it to a plate. Turn the alarm feature off of the temperature probe, and cover the turkey with foil. The temp should continue to rise for the next 30' or so, thus ensuring the cook point of 185 degrees, but not making dry turkey!
Okay, you are now ignoring the turkey. Take the roasting pan, and pour the liquid inside into a measuring cup, or (even better) a fat separator. Let it sit for 5'. Melt some butter into a large saucepan (leftover herb butter, anyone?) and throw in some fat from the liquid in the measuring cup. Add enough flour to make a paste, and stir for 1' over medium heat. When it's thick enough, add the pan liquid (and extra chicken broth if needed/desired) into the pan. Stir or whisk for 1'. Bring to a boil, and boil until the gravy coats a spoon (meaning, it gets thick). If it's thicker than you like, just whisk in a little more broth.
When the gravy is how you want it, take it off the heat. Carve your bird as desired, and serve with the hot gravy. Oh so very good!!
Gravy variation which sound weird but is so very good:
Instead of making the butter/fat/flour roux, put some gingersnap cookie dough into the pan. Add a little broth and fat, and whisk till it's smooth. Add broth as desired. This works well with turkey seasoned with thyme and/or garlic.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Roasted Corn, other corn methods
Since corn is in season and it's the Fourth of July, I thought I should share my new discovery about corn. My old corn cooking method was from David Rosengarten (from The Television Food Network's Taste show). For that, you put cold water in a pot, add corn, put on high, and the corn's done when it comes to a boil (living in high altitude, however, I had to alter that a bit to "boil for a few minutes").
Recently I saw an episode of TVFN's Tyler's Ultimate (with the very attractive Tyler Florence!) for Roasted Corn with Chili Lime Butter, and just had to try it.
6 ears fresh corn, unhusked since it's just me and my fiance, we usually do two, maybe three ears
1/4 pound butter (1 stick), room temperature two tablespoons-ish
2 teaspoons chili powder to taste
1 lime, zested mmmm...limey
1 lime, cut into wedges I usually forsake this for this recipe as it's limey enough and just for garnish
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place the corn in its husks directly on the oven rack and roast until the corn is soft when you press on it, 30 to 40 minutes.
While the corn is roasting, combine the butter with the chili powder and lime zest.
Peel down the husks and tie in a knot to use as a handle while eating. Fiance does this as he used to work at a restaurant and doesn't have my wussy hands Rub the corn with soft butter mixture, and garnish with a lime wedge. (This roasting method produces the sweetest corn I have ever tasted.) This is actually part of the recipe, but I agree
In similar fashion, fiance grilled corn last week at his family vacation (we don't own a grill, it's very sad!). His mother peeled the husk down banana-style, took out the silks, retied the husk back on (usually done with string, but she improvised by tying with some husk-strings), then let them soak. I believe she said "two hours," but we didn't have the time. Fiance then put them on a medium grill (or he should have as lots of fire was involved) until soft when you press them. Fiance's five-year-old nieces weren't impressed by the "burnt corn," but it tasted delicious to me! Just be careful of the flames, cook them at the highest over a medium flame, and soak them for at least two hours and it should be delicious.
