Christmas Eve with Turducken

See also:
December 4 - In Pursuit of Turducken
December 22 - Pride of Turducken
December 24 - Adventure with Turducken
December 25 - Fun with Turducken
December 26 - Christmas Eve with Turkducken
December 27 - Boxing Day with Turkducken
January 31 - Turducken at Large


What did the turducken taste like? I don't know. My kin treats family gatherings as mass feeds. There was so much food on Christmas Eve, we could have fed the whole street with variety, quality, and quantity. But mostly quantity.

During the day, for munching while playing mah jongg, there were pastries and buns with meat filling, crunchy shrimp crackers, tasty dried cuttlefish, spicy beef jerky and fruit. A neighbour came by. I was grateful he agreed to take some meat-filled buns with him.

For dinner, we had a buffet of sinful indulgences, a red district of inviting oral pleasures vying for attention, a contrasting array of edible colours and food debauchery only as Stanley Kubrick and Fellini could have imagined. You know you'll be taken to excess if you touched, yet you couldn't help yourself.

There were giant platters of crispy deep fried spring rolls and samosas, sweet and luscious Alaskan king crab legs, plump shrimp cocktail, homemade spinokopita in phyllo pastry, delectable sushi... are we at the main course yet? No. There was a beautiful fresh salad brimming over, pickled beets, chambord carrots, mushroom strudel in puff pastry, and piled high mashed potatoes. Of course the sumptious turducken with stuffing.

For dessert, we had two fruit pies, assorted fruit with rich chocolate fondue, and lots and lots of chocolates. We served sparkling wine, regular wine, pop, water and coffee.

Thing is, came dinner time, I wasn't all that hungry, having munch away at different things during the day. All the food kind of blended together for me and I could no longer distinguish one taste or texture from another. Dinner guests complimented on the moist, tender and flavourfulness of the turducken, but I wouldn't know. My mother said, We must make our turkeys this way from now on.

I guess it makes sense that the duck and chicken would be tender. But the turkey apparently was also moist despite being exposed in the oven for over eight hours. I guess it's the low temperature the whole thing was cooked in. Because there was so much food, we only ate half the turducken, leaving an entire half untouched.

The butcher said when serving the turducken, you cut the bird in half, then slice across the half bird as if you were carving a roast to get all three birds and the stuffing in the same slice. It didn't quite work out that way. The turkey breast was quite large. The first few slices were of turkey only. But you could easily share the duck and chicken from later slices.

Here's a picture of the half bird, consisting of these layers:

- turkey (white meat at top)
- sausage stuffing
- duck (the dark meat in middle)
- corn meal stuffing
- chicken (bottom)
- sausage stuffing



The good thing is, my sister-in-law had planned to spend Boxing Day with us. We were going to have dinner out. But now we've decided to stay in. Tonight, I will get to taste the turducken without the scrumptious taste and distraction of competing offerings.