Wine Food Pairing - Turducken, Three Birds in One!
Remember the old TV commercial "two, two, two mints in one"? Well, a Turducken is "three, three, three birds in one"! A turkey, a duck and a chicken are combined together to make this delightful bird.
Turducken is one of my husband's specialties to prepare. Yes, I know that you can buy them premade, but they do not taste nearly as good and of course you miss all the fun and adventure of trying to stuff a chicken inside a duck,and a duck inside a turkey. YIKES! Sounds naughty just talking about it! To begin this fowl journey, pun intended, you need to decide the number of people you will be serving. Our last turducken made about 60 servings, no kidding! This feast was made with a twenty pound turkey, a six pound duck and a three pound chicken.
The first step is to prepare the birds the night before by deboning. WARNING! You must be cold sober at this point because you will be dealing with very sharp knives. The chicken and duck will be totally deboned and leave the legs and wings on the turkey for a nice presentation. This is not an easy job and requires a great deal of patience. When this task is completed, I highly recommend that you wrap up the birds and pop them in the fridge to chill for the night and then pour your self a healthy shot of Jack Daniels and you chill out on the couch!
Early the next morning, prepare your favorite stuffing. My husband likes to cube up sourdough rolls that have been dried out in the oven. To this he adds several eggs, chicken stock, fresh parsley and sage, butter, salt and pepper.
OK, now it gets interesting. The rest is definitely a job for two people. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and at this point, opening a bottle of sparkling wine and taking a quick break is a good idea. Your nerves must be steady to complete the stuffing process and try not to lose your sense of humor!
Back to work! Stuff your deboned chicken with your prepared mix. Now slice open the duck and sprinkle a little sherry, salt and pepper on the meat. Place a layer of fresh spinach and a small amount of stuffing on the duck as well as your stuffed chicken. COOL! The "ducken" part of the feast is prepared.
Let me digress a bit. I am a retired paramedic and have delivered countless babies in my career. The next step to the turducken brings back a lot of these memories, sort of a reverse birthing process. My husband has positioned the turkey, the drumsticks are askew and I am pushing the "ducken" into the open cavity. I twist and he turns, the turkey is slippery, but not as slippery as the chicken/duck. The whole thing almost slides off the countertop and my husband speaks a few naughty German words, and then, it is in! YEAH!!! VICTORY!
We quickly change positions and I hold up the drumsticks to keep a rebirth from happening while my dearly beloved begins to stitch up the opening. I must say that he is pretty darn good with a needle and thread! It is finally completed. It has only taken us three hours to go from various deboned fowl to one fine looking trussed up turkey.
It will take about six to eight hours to get the birds up to the proper temperature so now is the time to kick back and enjoy the rest of your sparkling wine and chill a couple bottles of Chardonnay for the actual turducken feast.
We actually paired the bird with Yellow Tail Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Both worked well and complimented each other nicely. This is what the adventure of wine food pairing is all about. CHEERS!
Denise Clarke has been passionate about Wine Food Pairing for many years...to follow her blog or to download her FREE e-book go to: http://www.winefoodpairing.blogspot.com or to her website at: http://www.wine-food-pairing.com
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