As most of you know, I recently ordered something a little strange: A Turducken from Herbert's Specialty Meats in Maurice, Lousiana. Well, they used to be there but have gotten so big that they moved to Houston for ease of shipping... That works for me. They can't ship these across the border as there might be customs waits and spoilage. But Lucky for me the Finley's recently moved to the lower 48 and we were on our way to Washington.
How did this all start? I saw an episode of 60 minutes where the featured Herbert's as the inventors of this strange dish that was causing a commotion. People would drive for hours every Thanksgiving to get a Turducken from them. They started shipping and things grew from there. This was 2 years ago. In the meantime, on a visit to Fred Meyer's (The greatest store ever) I was looking at Tofurky in the frozen weird stuff section. When I opened the door, out fell a boxed Turducken. The manager explained that they are seasonal and getting more popular.
Well, if I'm going to have something weird, I owe it to myself to go to the source. No Turducken in a box for me Sir! I found Hebert's online (which you couldn't do 2 years ago) and gave them a call. They had my Turducken in a cooler on dry-ice and on it's way the next day.
(From the Herbert's website)
A Turducken is a delicately deboned turkey that is stuffed with boneless duck and chicken. A delicious cornbread dressing and pork stuffing is then added to separate each poultry. Special seasonings are sprinkled over and into the entire product. The Turducken is vacuum sealed forcing the seasonings into the product enhancing flavors and freshness. All you have to do is put it in the oven. You are sure to have a meal that will impress even the best gourmet.
I thought that documenting the process would be fun - and delicous, so here goes!
The fella comes vacumme sealed in a plastic bag. This is after an hour or two of defrosting, so it is starting to let out some gasses. It's about the size of a football and weighs in at 10 lbs. They claim it feeds 15.
Into the pan with you. Those are the wings at the front and it is breast up (that's backwards, but I figured it out too late). The Turduckens I saw on the TV and website all looked like they had the leg bones intact. This one doesn't and looks more like a blob than a Turkey.
Into the oven
3 hours at 375. Then turn over and 1 hour more uncovered to brown things up.
Ready to be turned. That was a long 3 hours, but 1 more seemed even longer (I wanna eat you!)
Back in to brown
Finally done! Look at all the Cajun juice on the bottom. It smelt spicy-good (and I like spicy).
Out of the pan it looks more like... Something. :-) Here's where I realized I had it upside-down. No big deal, you eat the whole thing.
Kerry is going to make some spicy gravy and I'm going to like it.
That spoon actually would stand up before I put some stock in the pot. Kerry likes his gravy thick.
It might look weird now, but what's inside?
Let me operate this (new toy, I bought an electric knife).
The pay-off. No bones, just good, good and more good!
Do we look happy or hungry? I think it's both.
Slice down the middle...
Then side to side.
That is a lot of meat!
It takes 2 slices to have it all. There is Turkey, Duck, Chicken and Cornbread and Pork Sausage Stuffing in there. The Turkey was more toward the back and the Duck more in the front (or was it the other way around?).
Always be nice to your Father-In-Law. He gets served first.
What a meal! 3 kinds of meat, 4 kinds of stuffing (we also had shrip and crab stuffing from down south, Mom made some stovetop stuff), corn and smashed pototoes. Yumm!
Even Sarah had to try it.
I'm done cooking, let me dig in. That was a very tasty meal.
Everyone loved it. Well worth the time and effort.
When they claim it feeds 15, they are NOT kidding. Dad and I went back for seconds, and all of this was still left over. I had also ordered Shrimp and Crab Stuffing, Crawfish Etouffe, Pork Boudin, Shrimp Boudin and 2 pounds of Crawfish tails. Aside from the Stuffing, we couldn't eat any of it. For the next 3 days we ate Turducken... And still only finished half of it. Luckily Dad just purchased a vacumme sealer and I brought the rest home in the same cooler they shipped to me in. Now all I have to do is heat it up - and Eat it up!
Check out my Avalon 737sp Babyface Mod.
Here is my Bluetooth mod for iBooks.
Here is my page describing how to add an ATA hard drive to a G5.
Here is a link to my Father in Law's page: He makes knives in Alaska!
Here's a link to my pal Joe's band: Dr. No
Gary runs a 'Rock School'.
Thanks for looking!