Cooking web notes

Turducken for our Christmas Dinner

 

For real?  I always thought turducken was a gimmick! 

You know, if you watch football as much as we do, you’ve seen John Madden and his gang slobbering over the turducken before them at the football stadium on Thanksgiving Day in years past.

It is turkey duck chicken — three birds and no bones with the exception of 2 turkey wings and 2 duck legs.  Turducken is a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck into a deboned turkey ~ separated by a savory dressing ~ then sewed all together into one mighty package of meat and dressing. 

I was amazed to see an article about it in the December issue of Southern Living magazine.  We enjoy our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and it is almost always prime rib, my favorite.  But, after reading about turducken in the magazine, Bill and I discussed it and decided to buy the turducken from Cajun Ed at Hebert’s Specialty Meats (pronounced A Bears) in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It didn’t take long to win Bill over as he, along with Bubba and Matt, are huge fans of turkey, duck and chicken. 

Oh my gosh!  It was delicious!  Cajun Ed makes many different versions of turducken and we ordered Turducken with Andouille sausage and cornbread dressing.  Really spicy dressing with the meat so very tender and juicy, it was no effort to cut with a fork! 

 

After researching on the internet, we were boggled with the many different methods for roasting in regards to cooking time and temperature.  We followed the instructions that came with the turducken that in no way resembled all of those on the internet.

Here’s Cajun Ed at Hebert’s Specialty Meats recommended method:

“Defrost first. Remove plastic wrap. The 14-16 pound turducken cooks at 375° F for 4 hours covered and 1 hr. uncovered, breast down or until the internal temperature exceeds 165° F”.

It is stressed that it has to be completely thawed, which took 4 days in the refrigerator.  That is 14-16 pounds of solid meat with a bit of dressing!  The instructions tell you exactly how to slice it. 

The pictures were taken before it reached the dinner table as I knew there would no hope of taking a picture once it reached the table. 

It will be prime rib for New Year’s dinner here, foregoing the traditional pork roast!  It has been a great year of change here for sure, you know, if you follow my blog!

As I am writing this, Bill is drooling thinking about the leftover turducken in the refrigerator in the garage that he says is calling his name!

It's delicious!!!

Just a reminder, today is the last day to enter my CSN Giveaway for a $35 gift certificate that I posted on December 17^th!

Also, check out my friend, Linda’s blog, at My Kind of Cooking for her great recipes and cookbook giveaway!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 6:10 AM and is filed under Chicken, Entree, Goose/Duck/Turducken, Holidays, Turkey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.