The Turducken Project

For many people, a turducken is a mythical object, an unfathomable creation, an urban legend. But for those in the know, a turducken is an extraordinary feat, a magical amalgamation of meats and stuffings, a transcendent Thanksgiving experience. Up until a few weeks ago, I fell into the former category; now, I can proudly declare myself a member of the latter.

To dispel a few myths, I honestly do not think making a turducken is quite as challenging as rumors may indicate. Sure - de-boning is a long and arduous process and you are guaranteed to encounter many obstacles along the way, but fortunately, the process of de-boning one turkey only took about an hour! Furthermore, there are many shortcuts that can be taken in the process of assembling a turducken - which I gladly took - and I think my turducken still turned out quite turducken-y.

For starters, I did not use a whole chicken. Considering that the chicken is tucked away inside a turkey, duck, and 2 layers of stuffing, I really did not see any point in using a whole chicken (and taking the effort to de-bone this tiny bird). As a time saver, I used 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs and pounded them into a thin layer. Alternatively, you could use 2 chicken breasts to minimize the number of distinct parts you are using, but I personally prefer the rich, moist flavor of dark meat (another reason why I chose not to use a whole chicken).

To save even more time, you can also use skinless duck breasts instead of a whole duck. I personally wanted to use a whole duck so that I could maximize the duck flavor and content, but thanks to my lack of experience with de-boning, I ended up using 2 duck breasts, pounded thin. I really wish I had been able to use the entire duck since, out of the 3 meats, I infinitely prefer eating duck, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

You have to use a whole turkey. There is just no way around it. And you must be careful with the de-boning and make sure you do not pierce through the skin...so if I were you, I would choose to also use at least a whole duck or whole chicken so you can first practice de-boning on these smaller birds. Remember that, ultimately, the duck/chicken will be wrapped inside the turkey, so even if you mess up, no one will notice.

For my turducken, I used a 10 lb turkey, a 5 lb duck (though only the breasts managed to make their way into the finished product), and 4 chicken thighs. I chose a smaller turkey so that I would be able to easily lift it on my own, but if you have more strength than me and/or kitchen helpers, I would recommend you choose a slightly larger turkey.

Before you begin, make sure all of your meats are thawed so that you can easily de-bone and you do not freeze your hands off while de-boning. Also make sure you have a sharp and sturdy boning knife on hand. Prepare your work-space and make sure you have plenty of room. I chose to cover my kitchen counter with saran wrap for easy clean-up, and I have to say it really came in handy - I would definitely recommend doing this!

Whip out the first bird you plan to de-bone. In my case, this was the duck. Before you begin de-boning, make sure you thoroughly read up on the process and steps to de-boning, so that you can avoid some of the silly mistakes I made. Even though the duck is meant to be incorporated into the turducken skinless, because I was using this as practice for my turkey, I went through the entire process trying to keep the skin intact.

My 5 lb duck

One of the most important details to pay attention to when de-boning is which side of the bird you are starting on. I began cutting from the wrong side, so after cutting out the rib cage, instead of having one continuous piece of meat, I ended up with 2 duck breasts. It was a sad moment indeed when I had almost finished carving around the rib cage, only to discover that the last portion of to carve away would result in 2 distinctly separate pieces of meat. Oh well!

I briefly considered deboning the thigh and leg meat to throw into the turducken with the breasts, but given how little meat I would have gotten out of those pieces, I chose not to. Plus I really wanted to roast the skin I had cut off of the duck and without any meat, it would have been weird, so win-win!

Duck breasts pounded thin

Thankfully I had already previously considered using duck breasts instead of a whole duck, so I was prepared for this moment. Placing the duck breasts between 2 layers of saran wrap, I pounded the meat so that I would have a larger surface of duck meat to layer onto the turkey and wrap stuffing in. If I had more meat to work with, I probably would not have pounded the duck meat quite as thin as I did so that I could have had a thicker layer of duck to work with (it was probably only 1 cm thick). After finishing the duck breasts, I followed the same procedure for my chicken thighs, and pounded 4 chicken thighs to form a thin layer, approximately 2 cm thick.

The 10 lb turkey

Next up was the turkey. After my duck de-boning debacle, I made sure to carefully read up on turkey de-boning and ensure that I was cutting from the right side. Because this skin needed to be intact, I made sure to cut the turkey very, very carefully.

De-boning the turkey wound up being a lot easier than de-boning the duck because the turkey was much larger and there was a significantly thicker layer of meat to work with.

When it was time to cut away the rib cage from the back of the breast, I admit I panicked again. Even though I had carefully followed the instructions and (I think) had began cutting from the right side, I noticed there was very little meat between the turkey meat and the bone. But given that I had no choice and absolutely HAD to leave the skin intact, using extreme caution, I slowly cut away the bone using tiny strokes. Magically, I managed to cut the rib cage free and leave the meat/skin intact! If you run into this problem when de-boning your turkey, just proceed with extreme caution and you will be fine.

Breaking the wings and thighs from the rib cage was one of the most difficult parts for me, but thankfully my boning knife was quite sharp, so I found a way to just carve through the bone and cartilage. Watch out for any shards of bone attached to the meat - when in doubt, just cut it off! I left the bones in the drumsticks and wings so that they could maintain their shape (and so I could just be done with de-boning).

Success! A de-boned turkey

And voila - the turkey was done!

I placed the turkey in a simple brine of chicken stock, water, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper. I'm pretty sure I also added oregano and sage (and whatever else was in the pantry), but by this point it was getting really late and I was extremely tired, so who really knows.

After all the meats were complete, I prepared two stuffings: cranberry, apple, and sage stuffing along with a cornbread dressing. I chose to layer the cranberry, apple, and sage stuffing between both the turkey and the duck as well as inside the chicken, with the cornbread stuffing going between the duck and the chicken.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early to assemble my turducken. After laying the turkey flat, I spread a layer of the first stuffing on top of the exposed meat. I tried to keep my stuffing layer thin so that there would be enough room for the additional layers of meat and stuffing.

I then plopped the duck layer on top of the stuffing and scooped a layer of the cornbread stuffing.

After adding the final chicken and stuffing layer, I was ready to begin closing up the turducken. Since my chicken and duck layers were not one consistent piece of meat, I ended up just rolling up and pressing the pieces together to form a log, which was actually much easier than I had imagined. Once the chicken roll was complete, it was much easier to wrap the duck around the chicken roll.

Once I reached the turkey layer, I quickly realized why people typically buy larger turkeys - it was quite hard to close the turkey up! But with much prodding and squeezing (as well as a lot of stuffing leaking out), I managed to close up the turkey flaps with turkey lacers and some kitchen string.

After slathering the turkey with a cup of butter mixed with thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper, I tied up the chicken thighs, covered up the neck cavity of the turkey with aluminum foil, and popped the turducken into the oven. I cooked the turducken at 400 F for 30 minutes and then dropped the temperature down to 325 F to let it cook (while also basting every 30 minutes) until the meat reached a temperature of 165 F.

I had anticipated that it would take about 10 hours to cook the turducken, but it actually finished in 6 hours - much too early for my dinner! Sadly, because I wanted to keep the turducken warm, I left it in the oven at 225 F for the next few hours. I think this ended up slightly drying out my turkey meat, but the beauty of a turducken is that since you only get a thin sliver of turkey meat in each slice, overall your turducken still tastes rather moist!

Another major advantage to making a turducken is that the meat is so easy to carve - you just cut slices of the breast! Unfortunately, the layers tended to not stay together in one piece, so I would recommend you place each individual slice directly onto your guests' plates. But all in all, we ended up having a delicious meal and great turducken stories to tell friends and coworkers the next day. Happy eating (and/or Thanksgiving, if relevant at the time of reading this post), folks!