We stopped by the Butcher the week before to order the birds. There was a small piece of me that hoped they could bone the birds for me. Unfortunately, they told me I was out of luck.
The birds were picked up the Friday before Christmas (Christmas Eve Eve) and left in the fridge overnight. Saturday Morning (Christmas Eve) would become "boning day."
First up was the Turkey. This was the hardest task as it still needed to look nice for presentation. The saving grace was that it was also the biggest bird. about 30 minutes later, I had a Turkey with only drumsticks and wings still attached.
The Duck was next, and took slightly longer as it was also the first of the completely boned birds. The drumsticks went fairly smoothly, but I just cut off the wings: that would have been insanely hard and left me with not much meat to show for it.
Finally, I tackled the chicken. This took about 15 and was probably the best boned bird of the bunch. Again, I just cut off the wings and saved them for a dinner to be named later. Three birds boned in under two hours, not bad!
Next came the stuffing and sewing together. I made what I thought was a generous amount of stuffing...but apparently not! I placed the turkey breast down on the cutting board to stuff it. After laying the stuffing 1/4" thick, I realized I did not have enough. Who would have though 6 cups of bread crumbs would not make enough stuffing! I had to skimp on the next layers, but it probably worked out for the best as I'm not sure my family are huge stuffing fans.
Robyn helped me sew this monstrosity shut. I made the executive decision to NOT flip the bird back over so the breast was on the top, which I am slightly still kicking myself for.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Pre-sewed Turducken"]  [/caption] |
| From Dec 2011 |
I took the over 25 pounds of meat and put in the oven for 5 hours...NOT. LONG. ENOUGH. The recipe said that it should take only 3...Paula Deen, why did you lie to me!?
We ended up Cutting the bird into Thirds to encourage the final 10 degrees to show up, which they did.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Upside down Finished Turducken."]  [/caption] |
| From Dec 2011 |
Final Verdict: DELICIOUS.
It was quite a bit of work, but given the right circumstances (like a holiday : ) ) I would do this again.
I would definitely allot for more cooking time and try to bring them together the day before.
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