Iron Chef Turducken: "This was My Everest"

As you know, this weekend the tailgate crew prepared Turducken. I've gotten several emails asking three main questions:

1. How was it assembled?
2. If I were going to make a Turducken for Thanksgiving, would you recommend building it or buying a prepared one?
3. Do you have an pics of the preparations?

First, let me quote the person who built the Turducken last week for our crew. "This was my Everest."

She will forever be known on this blog as "Iron Chef Turducken."

[Photo: She would kick Morimoto's ass in the Turducken event.]

In an attempt to answer questions 1-3 above, you can check out her blog for pics. However, I would caution you that this one of those things you probably don't want to see how it's made...sort of like gravy, corporate annual reports or nursing home sex. In all those cases, you're better off not seeing how it actually happens.

To supplement the pics, here are some background stats that she told me about which aren't on her blog.

-- She began building it on Monday. Cooking is an understatement. More of a "build" than "cook".

[Photo: John Madden is the Billy Graham of Turduckens. On Saturday, I accepted Madden's altar call.]

-- She refused to take the easy way out and purchase the "pre-built" Turducken. She built the entire thing by hand. After learning of this process and seeing the pics, I would strongly recommend a phone call to someone like the Cajun Meat Company.

-- The instructions were 14 pages long. Total man-hours to build it before it went into the smoker were in the 11-13 hour range.

-- She went through 50 pairs of latex gloves prepping the chicken (4 lbs), duck (7 lbs) and turkey (26 lbs).

-- She actually purchased 2 chickens. The first chicken was a practice bird so that she could learn how to de-bone the bird while leaving the bird more or less whole. After this project she's probably a 2nd year veterinary student equivalent.

-- She and another friend, then smoked this thing for over 15 hours using wireless thermometers that would beep then when the bird needed attention. Most folks who cook this type of thing just bake it for 9 or so hours.

It's hard to fully get a sense of scale for how enormous the finished Turducken was. Even with the attached pics. The best I can tell you was that the chest was about 16 inches in diameter and it fed everyone. And then some.

And it was glorious.

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