Turducken Recipes

Turducken Recipes and the process of creating turducken

For you to produce turducken recipes you first have to acquire the skill of boning turkeys, chicken, and ducks. If you want to make a Royal Roast you will have to bone chicken goose and pheasant. Fortunately the anatomy of these birds are very similar so once you learn the technique for one bird it easily transfers to the others. And if you don't want to take the time to learn boning techniques you can have a good butcher do it for you.

Turducken Recipes have several advantages. In addition to being unique and a bit unusual, the process gives you the opportunity to add flavor to the birds and make them easier to carve. It also saves space in your oven. You have quite a bit of meat in a very small space. These recipes are usually for a large crowd because traditionally you are serving three birds, but we have method that answers the question how to make turducken for two, or for a small number of diners.

If you are going to do the boning yourself here is the step by step process.

Okay, we have the tree boned birds. The outer bird (the turkey) is boned as in the above link. The other two birds are completely boned including the drumsticks, or the wings and legs can be removed and just the breast portion used.

Next you will need three portions of stuffing. You can either mix three different stuffings or one large batch of stuffing. Often we try to keep stuffing light and loose for stuffing one bird, but that is not necessary or even desirable here. You want your dressings rather firm.

Chef Paul Prudhomme is often attributed with the creation turducken (a sometimes disputed assertion as layered birds have been around for centuries) but he did help to make the dish well known. Because he was from Louisiana turducken is often made with Cajun spices and dressing. A Cajun dressing can be made with a traditional stuffing recipe just by adding andouille or other hot spicy sausage removed from their casing and mixed with the stuffing. But turducken recipes do not require a Cajun spice and any good dressing, and poultry seasoning will work well. Choose your favorite.

Again we need to thank Walter Fuller of The Natural Link in Lewiston, New York. After he demonstrated how to bone a turkey, he showed us how he assembles turduckens.

Here is the process:

First the ingredients are assembled. The dressing has been made, chilled, and formed into two sheets and a small football shape. The first sheet of dressing is pressed into the boned turkey. You can also take mixed dressing and press it onto the turkey and form the sheet in that manner.
Press the first inner bird onto the dressing that you have just laid down. In this case, the chicken is placed next because it is larger than the duck.
The second layer of stuffing is laid over the second bird.
Here the duck breast has been added over the second layer of dressing. And notice the football shaped mound of dressing on top. That is the third dressing, and its shape will give the finished bird the correct volume to restore the boned turkey to its correct shape.
Here a trussing needle is worked through the skin of the turkey.
Here is another view of a trussing needle holding the back skin and flesh together. Notice the hole in the point of the needle, The butcher twine is threaded through that hole, the needle is pulled back pulling the twine through the hole that the needle made.
The twine is tied to hold the back together. The process of using the trussing needle to pull twine and tying to secure the back are repeated several times until the back is secure.
Turn the turducken breast up. It looks just like the original turkey. All that is left is to close the body cavity with the trussing needle and twine.
Close the body cavity with butcher twine An additional loop of twine can be used to pull the wings close to the body and the drumsticks can be tied together/
And here is the finished turducken, along with a twine turkey cradle to make lifting easy.