Turducken for your holiday table

Turducken , the holiday feast made famous by John Madden, consists of a duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a turkey with flavor and spice ingredients interspersed between the poultry layers. Some people reverse the process and put a chicken breast inside a duck but the concept is still the same. Internet estimates put the emergence of the turducken at about 1985 but I myself believe that those good Cajun folks had been over stuffing their holiday poultry for quite some time before then. Turducken poultry needs to be de-boned, a task you can do yourself, but I believe that job is best accomplished by a food preparation professional. Some of the recipes use just a duck breast and some use a duckling but the finished creation is just as amazing either way. Make sure you have a good meat thermometer on hand and be prepared to invest anywhere from 8 to 16 hours to properly cook the creation. Remember, you would much rather burn your Thanksgiving meal to a crisp than to have just one holiday guest get salmonella poisoning.

There are several top notch sources for prepared holiday turducken, I myself would buy one pre-made rather than investing the hours of work it would take to properly prepare one myself but then again I'm a very "throw something together" kind of cook. . The Cajun Grocer offers prepared turducken in several wonderful flavor varieties and they will ship them in as little as one day. Be absolutely sure about what you're buying and make sure you can trust your source.

If you want to go the true DIY route, you can follow these instructions by Chef Paul Prudhomme for making your own holiday turducken from scratch. This instructional guide may be the single best source for turducken guidance on the Internet. If you're looking to create this dish with your own hands, you must give Chef Prudhomme's guide a good look. If you'd like to have that holiday turducken smoked, be sure to read how to make your own meat smoker, by Francesca Clarke.


Be sure to tune in to DIYLife every day for our growing gathering of fantastic holiday ideas and you'll also want to have a look at Holidash.. We will be providing an absolute cornucopia of holiday inspiration for you in classic DIY style. Whether it's home, crafts or safety, you can count on us to keep you on the very cutting edge of what you need to know to get things done yourself. We try to leave no stone unturned.