A friend of mine suggested I blog about the turducken. I think "must" was the operative word. :) I got to try one of these things on Thanksgiving. It's a loving abuse of the traditional turkey. Perhaps you've heard of it.
Here's the recipe: You take a turkey, and debone it. You take a duck, and debone it. Then you take a hen, and debone it. You stuff each with dressing, perhaps different kinds of dressing for each bird. Then the hen goes inside the duck, and they go inside the turkey. Cook it, covered, for about five hours at 325. Or 350. Follow the directions! Or buy one! :)
This is Cajun Country's answer to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds! The origins are convoluted. South Louisiana lays claim to it. Chef Paul Prudhomme tries to lay claim to it, but he has no documentation. My favorite story is about a Tulane University Medical Student coming up with it. He (or she) had the surgical skills!
Anyhow, it was delicious. The turkey meat blended with the duck and hen. And with the different dressings and gravy, you didn't know what you were eating at any given time! All Good. I didn't take any pics. But I'm going to show a couple of pics I found on another website. Just somebody else who had a turducken. I'll give some attribution: thanks for the pics dude! :) It's just two pics, one when it arrives in the mail, the other cooked and cut.
So that's my turducken salute. But I've got to reference just a little more. This is from Wikipedia. The idea of stuffing dead animals into one another for eating is nothing new! And I'm only including this for one purpose. You don't need to read the different combinations. Unless it helps. Just try to pronounce the names, out loud! In front of someone else! :)
Variations
Some enthusiasts have taken it a step further, and come up with the turduckencorpheail. This is a standard turducken, which is then stuffed with a cornish game hen, which is then stuffed with a pheasant, and finally stuffed with a quail.
Still others have pushed the envelope even further with the turgooponducheasanishuail, which includes both a goose and capon, in addition to the component birds of the turduckencorpheail. In recent years, another version called the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga has been growing in popularity. It has all the properties of the previous two versions listed, but also includes beef, pork, lamb, and frog. The turduckencorpheail, turgooponducheasanishuail, and the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga
Chef Paul Prudhomme brought renewed popularity to the OsturduckencorpheailOsturduckencorpheail recipe. There is a similar dish in South Africa called the Osturducken, an ostrich stuffed with turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken.
Some barbecue aficionados have been known to enclose a turducken in a whole hog, and slow-smoke or pit roast it for large gatherings or festivals. Kansas City Pitmaster "Schedule Peter" Pookie Thornhill was credited in 2006 with the invention of the turdbutt, a pork shoulder (or Boston butt), inside a duck, inside a turkey. A further variant is the gurducken, where the external bird is a goose, which is stuffed with a turkey, then a duck, then a chicken. Some chefs "dress up" their turduckens, adding a vest of baby back ribs and/or a bowtie of bacon. The Turducken has also inspired variations, such as the hotchken. A hotchken, known as "the poor man's turducken," is a chicken stuffed with hotdogs.
In the UK the Turducken is commonly known as a three-bird roast. English chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall expanded this into a ten-bird roast (a turgoduckmaguikenantidgeonck- turkey, goose, duck, mallard, guineafowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon, woodcock) [1].
The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the 19th century: a bustergophechiduckneaealcockidgeoverwingailusharkolanbler (originally called a Rôti Sans Pareil, or "Roast without equal") - a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler. The final bird is small enough that it can be stuffed with a single olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. This dish probably could not be recreated in the modern era as many of the listed birds are now protected species.
A (possibly apocryphal) dish of camel stuffed with animal and plant foods in layers is whole stuffed camel.
One important note to those considering making one of these variations is the fact that when small things are placed inside of larger things, it becomes difficult to slice the end product in such a way that all things end up on your plate. Some claim that as much as 90% of a Turducken sliced from the turkey's neck backwards contain meat from all three birds, though if you attempt to serve an Osturduckencorpheil for a family meal (it will serve around 30 people), many people will be unhappy because it is impossible to slice the entire product such that the innermost quail ends up on everybody's plate."
Anybody got a favorite name? Or new recipe???
:)
TG
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