4 teaspoon canola oil. Add walnuts to Cajun Turducken Express the pan, sprinkle them with 1 ess Yield: 4 servings • Zest Factor: Medium teaspoon of Cajun spice blend. Stir, Turduckern Before you start to make the stuffing, and cook just a few minutes, until How to skip the all-day prepping project and get xp E taste the Cajun spice blend you’re going walnuts are lightly toasted and turducken on the table in under two hours to use and if it’s very salty, tone down infused with Cajun spice. Remove the the salt in the rest of the recipe. nuts from the pan, and set aside until BY ANDREA LYNN; RECIPES FOR SIDES BY GINNA MUNGIOVI needed. Lower the heat to medium, For the stuffing: add the chorizo to the pan, use a he noble turducken plays out like a carnivore’s dream— 1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon canola spatula to crumble the meat. Cook 1 layers of sumptuous turkey, duck and chicken drowned in oil, divided until done, about 5 to 7 minutes, stir - T gravy and packed with at least three different types of stuff - 1 cup chopped walnuts ring constantly. Remove the sausage ⁄2 5 ing. A turducken normally consists of a 20- to 25-pound turkey, a 2 teaspoons Cajun spice blend, from the pan, leaving about 1 table - 4- to 5-pound duck, and a 3-pound chicken, all with a whopping divided spoon of fat. Lower the heat to 14 cups of stuffing. Traditionally, this masterpiece is created by 2 chorizo sausages, removed from medium-low, and add onion, stirring carefully deboning and flattening each bird, filling each layer to casings and cooking to soften. After about 5 the brim with savory dressings, wedging one inside the other and 2 medium onions, roughly chopped minutes, add fennel and celery, finally cooking it for various hours. The cooking time can vary, as 2 medium-sized fennel bulbs, roughly cooking until all the vegetables are can the time it takes for prepping and assembly, but it’s a safe bet chopped soft and translucent. Add the garlic, that the entire process would take around 24 hours. 4 celery stalks, roughly chopped and cook 1 additional minute. The origins of turducken are sketchy. Amanda Hesser said it 2 cloves garlic, minced Remove the vegetables from the pan, 1 best in a 2002 New York Times’ article on the wonder dish: “Once ⁄4 cup dried cranberries and let cool for 5 to 10 minutes. upon a time, possibly at a lodge in Wyoming, possibly at a butcher 8 cups homemade or store-bought When vegetables are cool, add them shop in Maurice, Louisiana, or maybe even at a plantation in South cornbread, crumbled to the workbowl of a food processor with 2 1 Carolina, an enterprising cook decided to take a boned chicken, a chicken broth, as needed ⁄4 cup Cajun-spiced walnuts, and dried boned duck and a boned turkey, stuff them one inside the other cranberries. Blend just 30 seconds until like Russian dolls, and roast them. He called his masterpiece For the turducken: mixture is combined. In a large bowl, 6 turducken.” The pedigree of this now-famous dish isn’t really 2 teaspoons canola oil add vegetable mixture, cornbread, 1 important. Instead, let’s just focus on the fact that wherever it may 1 duck breast remaining ⁄4 cup of walnuts, remaining 1 have started, Louisiana can claim ownership of the mighty 2 or 3 boneless, skinless chicken 1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning and ⁄2 turduckens created today. thighs cup chicken stock. Stir, adding more I was determined to make a turducken of my own creation. The 2 turkey cutlets chicken broth as needed to make a only problem? Deboning. Okay, so deboning not one but three whole salt and freshly ground pepper cohesive but not soggy texture. birds is a daunting task that even those with butchery training don’t Make the turducken: Preheat oven to find enticing (I asked many butchers if they would do it for me, and For the gravy: 350°. The only tricky part of this whole was politely told no each time). I needed an easier version. Then it 1 tablespoon butter recipe is the slicing of the duck breast, came to me! What about a variation using breasts or flattened cuts of 1 tablespoon flour everything after that is a snap, we each bird, layered using just one really fantastic stuffing instead of three, chicken broth, as needed promise. For a visual aid, follow the a then rolling it and tying it like a roast? Behold, the Turducken Express 2 tablespoons whole milk handy step-by-step photo tutorial pages was born—a quicker way of getting the taste of turducken without all Cajun spice blend 58 through 60. The object of step one is 3 the hassle of the original. Bask in the results; I know I sure did. freshly ground pepper to triple the surface area of the duck breast. To do that, rinse and pat dry the Make the stuffing: In a medium sauté duck breast and lay it flat on a cutting pan over medium-high heat, warm 1 board lined with waxed paper, skin side 7 1. Start with the duck breast, this will be the outside layer of the turducken roll. 2. Place the duck breast skin side down on a cutting board and make one thin cut from left to right almost all the way 4. Stash the duck breast in the fridge and lay the chicken thighs on the through the breast. Open the cut to the right and make another cutting board. thin cut almost all the way through the meat, this time right to 5. Cover the thighs with plastic wrap or waxed paper and gently e n left beginning at the crease. Open the second cut to the left. l i pound them to an even inch thickness. Wrap and refrigerate. M The duck breast should now be three attached panels. l l i B 6. Lay the turkey cutlets on the cutting board. y 3. Cover the cutting board with a sheet of plastic or waxed b y h paper, and place another sheet on top of the duck breast. p 7. Cover the cutlets with plastic wrap or waxed paper and gently pound a r Gently pound the meat to an even inch thickness. g them to an even inch thickness. o t o h P 58 CHILE PEPPER JANUARY 2010 JANUARY 2010 CHILE PEPPER 59 The Cajun Turducken Express down. Make one thin horizontal slit a spatula or the back of a spoon. in all its glory with stuffing 8 7 from left to right, about ⁄8ths of the Lastly, lay the turkey cutlets on the Duck, Duck, Goose! way through the breast. It is very chicken layer, use just enough to After much experimentation, I decided important to leave the slice attached cover the stuffing, and trim the that the duck breast, sliced open and to the breast. Open this first slit like a cutlets if they are too large. Spread 1 pounded flat, was the best candidate book, and starting at the crease thin tablespoon of stuffing over the to enfold the other two, making this between the slice and the breast, make turkey. There will be stuffing left dish technically a “duckchickey” 7 rather than a turducken. But I’m not another thin horizontal cut ⁄8ths of the over, which can be heated through in way through the breast. Open the the oven, about 25 to 30 minutes, the only maverick out there: There’s second slice up like a book. It is fine if along with the turducken. Using both an alternative called a gooseducken, which substitutes—you guessed it— some of the fat shows through in the hands (and maybe a partner), roll the goose, for the turkey, and rumors center of the breast. Place another turducken jelly-roll style from left to abound of some concoction with a sheet of waxed paper over the breast, right. Use butcher twine to tie the turducken stuffed inside a deboned and carefully pound it with a meat turducken like a roast in 1-inch pig. To take this dish to the next level, pounder or rolling pin until an even sections, so it will keep its shape. consider wrapping the whole package 9 layer is formed. The duck breast should Season the turducken with salt, in smoky, Cajun-spiced bacon. 1 be about ⁄3-inch thick at the end of pepper and Cajun seasoning, if this process. Cover the duck with desired. Take a moment to tidy up the plastic wrap and refrigerate it until roll, brushing off any excess stuffing needed. Discard the used waxed paper, from the outside, and trimming the and tear off a new sheet, place it on the ends of the twine. cutting board, and set one of the In a cast-iron pan over medium-high chicken thighs on the board, skin side heat, warm oil. Add turducken, duck up (We found two worked well but use skin side down, and brown on all sides, three if they’re small.). Cover the thigh approximately 3 to 5 minutes. Place with another sheet of waxed paper and cast-iron pan in the oven until pound it flat with a meat pounder or turducken reaches 165°, about 55 to 65 rolling pin to an even thickness. minutes. Remove turducken to a cutting Repeat with the remaining chicken board, tent lightly with aluminum foil thigh(s) and refrigerate, wrapped in and let rest for 10 minutes.