Resting from a dance lesson the other day, I was speaking with one of the instructors, Monet. She asked what I was doing for Christmas, and I told her I was spending Christmas Eve at my parents' house, and they were coming to mine for Christmas. The truth is, I'll probably go to their house for both, and bring gifts and dinner on Christmas day. My Dad's been in the hospital, and is probably more comfortable at home, now, than climbing in and out of a car. I'll probably make meat rolls, but that's another story.
Monet,(her real name, by the way), who just entered her twenties, floored me when she said she was having family, about ten people, for dinner, and was making a turducken. I thought turducken was something you graduated into trying when you tired after years of making turkey. Sort of a midlife 
crisis of cooking. She doesn't have the gravitas for turducken. She does, though. I got to know her better in Puerto Rico, and she's got a wicked sense of humor, and enough weight (figuratively only, Monet) to pull off turducken. She had to find a butcher who'd bone the birds and assemble the chimera for her.
In case you don't know, turducken was popularized in the 1980's, though some versions have existed since the middle ages. A deboned chicken is stuffed into a deboned duck, which in turn is stuffed into a partially deboned turkey. Some fill any small existing space with stuffing or sausage. You know those must weigh a ton!
The result is a dense as hell, large piece of meat. I asked her how long it needs to bake, and she said "forever". Even a turkey with a hollow cavity takes forever, Monet. A turducken must take eons.
Go, Monet. You rock.
[That's the back of Monet at the Dancesport competition in San Juan, Puerto Rico in November. She and her amateur partner did great.]
"Boned" and "deboned", in cooking, mean the same thing.
[Image of turducken from Wikipedia]
The Persian version includes a Cornish Game Hen stuffed with an egg!
Posted by: LC | December 30, 2007 at 12:25 PM