Tur-WHAT-ken? Tur-Where-is-it-from? Isn’t it Tur-Americ-ken?
A Turducken is a dish consisting of a chicken stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey….de-boned of course…imagine if they weren’t deboned? They’d look like Vincent D’Onofrio as Edgar in Men In Black…
Vincent D'Onofrio a.k.a. Edgar in Men In Black
To top all that meat into meat stuffing…the body cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are also stuffed!!! Sometimes with traditional stuffing of seasoned breadcrumbs and sausage meat. The stuffing can differ from household to household or even butcher to butcher.
The whole thing reminds me of those Russian dolls that fit one into the other…except it’s edible…and not Russian
Russian Matryoshka Doll - Obama
The final result is a densely meat packed roasted dish which takes a very long time to cook…
Where did this fascination come from of stuffing meat into meat into more meat? Apparently an english recipe called “The Yorkshire Christmas pie”, has been served since the 18th century, it consists of five birds layered or nested, and baked in a crust. In the UK, the turducken is also referred to as a “three-bird roast” or a “royal roast”.
Cooked Turducken Photo Courtesy Wikipedia
In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil (“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 – although he states that, since similar roasts were produced by ancient Romans, the rôti sans pareil was not entirely novel. The final bird is very small but large enough to hold just an olive; it also suggests that, unlike modern multi-bird roasts, there was no stuffing or other packing placed in between the birds. It appears to be illegal to make today as some of the species are endangered.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Approximately 46 Million turkeys are prepared on American Thanksgiving and that’s just a portion of the nearly 250 million turkeys eaten each year in the USA!
Canadian Thanksgiving Turkey consumption is nowhere near that!
Wild Turkey Bourbon Whiskey: For Making The Visiting Relatives More Palatable
I likes to food.
I’ve invited the family round this xmas for a big dinner, so obviously the roast is pretty important! I found an archive of ideas at this roast recipes site, but cant seem to decide on one – there’s so many to choose from! It is fun planning such a big family dinner though!