An alternative christmas roast: Turducken (aka the 3 bird roast)

vibe666 · 20-12-2010 4:21pm #1

although I really love ham (& anything else pig based) i'm not a great lover of turkey as it just feels & tastes to me like a big dried chicken, so i decided to give it a bit of a twist this year as we're hosting the annual family xmas dinner.

enter the turducken, which for the uninitiated is a de-boned duck, inside a de-boned chicken, inside a de-boned turkey.

thankfully, i found a great butcher in the form of hugh maguire in ashbourne (formally of navan where i live so its a bit of a trek, but well worth it imho).

everything else is going to be a normal sort of xmas affair with the usual bits and bobs, but i was wondering if anyone else is going to give the turducken or anything else slightly different a go this year?

i was originally thinking of goose, but i couldn't convince my wife to go for it as she's never had it before. turducken was a little easier since everyone likes chicken, duck & turkey already so although the method & execution are new, there's nothing unknown as far as the actual meat goes.

i'l let you know how i get on.

also, i just read the wikipedia article on turducken and this gave me a giggle.

In a Thanksgiving special of Red vs. Blue, Sarge decides to make his own version of a turducken that consists of a hummingbird, sparrow, cornish hen, chicken, duck, turkey, another turkey (with a picture of Michael Moore), penguin, peacock, eagle, albatross, emu, ostrich, leopard, a pterodactyl, and a Boeing 747.

aidan24326 · 21-12-2010 2:29am

vibe666 wrote: »

although I really love ham (& anything else pig based) i'm not a great lover of turkey as it just feels & tastes to me like a big dried chicken,

I used to think the same about turkey, and there's no doubt a bad turkey can be like chewing cardboard.

But the last couple of Christmases my mother has started getting turkey from a producer in Westmeath who does them fresh and free-range, and the difference is amazing. Succulent, juicy and delicious, the difference in free range organic meat is something you can't appreciate until you've had it.

i was originally thinking of goose, but i couldn't convince my wife to go for it as she's never had it before.

That's a pity, as goose is fab and would definitely be my first choice for Christmas dinner, as much as I like turkey and ham. You'll have to talk her into it for next year!

vibe666 · 21-12-2010 10:41am

i think i can convince her to do it another time, but her family can be a tiny bit fussy and it's very hard to get them to try new things and i don't think xmas dinner is going to be the right time. at least with the turducken even tho it's new to them its still 3 meats they already know and her mother says she's going to do ham too and bring that with her, so nobody is going to go hungry.