Tur-duck-What!!

QUASIMODO - A TALE OF A TURDUCKEN ROAST

OUR QUASI

Tis' the season to be jolly!!

I love this time of the year where my creative juices go on overdrive to prepare for the Christmas celebrations. Every year the W and I get into baking mode to use as gifts, and brain storm to think of a new dish to contribute to the annual family feast.

THE ORIGINAL ORDER (turkey, duck, chicken).

This year we went out on a limb, as we didn't have (or look for) any recipe, so went in blind folded. Both clans have shown some interest for Turducken, which is Chicken stuffed into a Duck stuffed into a Turkey. As we usually spend a lot of the day traveling between the two clans, roasting the infamous 3-in-1 bird was not an option due to the 4-6hrs roasting time it needed per bird per family. We opted to make an alternate roulade, only using the breast meat of each bird to form a football sized roast.

HAMMER TIME!!

It was fascinating reading the origins of the Turducken. Some other interesting facts shown below:
"South African dish employed the turkey-duck-chicken combination but went a step further and stuffed it into an ostrich. (The result, obviously, was an osturducken.) An old feast dish in the Republic of Georgia consists of an ox stuffed in succession with a calf, a lamb, a turkey, a goose, a duck, and finally a chicken. A traditional wedding dish in West Africa was a camel stuffed with, among other things, a sheep, a few buzzards, and several carp."

BACON, THYME, CRANBERRY, ROASTED PINE NUTS AND SOUR DOUGH STUFFING

The risk of pulling off this dish was a fine line between overcooking the breast meat of the 3 birds and serving salmonella 3-ways!!

READY FOR A ROASTING

Our trial roast was also up against the power players of fresh prawns, salmon sashimi, and a lamb roast, along with an array of other impressive dishes. I was relieved to find that there was no pork roast submission this year otherwise our baby roast would have lost for sure (I was sad though on missing pork crackle this year :( ). Our other obstacle was that the butcher sold us duck medallions which ended up being the smallest breast of the 3 birds. So our roast was unmasked as the freakishly named Chiturduck!! (sounds like a 3-in-1 swear word to me). My decision to warm it in the oven of its destination was also a bad one. It resulted in overcooking the outer chicken layer.

OUR CHRISTMAS DAY SUBMISSION

Even though, in my opinion, we ended up creating the Quasimodo of turduckens I was happy we managed to pull it off. On a plus the stuffing had a good combination of flavours and the sour dough did make a difference to the overall flavour. You could actually taste the difference between the 3 meats and I was impressed on how the roast managed to hold together. The accompaniment of cranberry sauce also managed the hydrate the dryness of the outer chicken breast.

ChiTurDuck (the Quasimodo version of Turducken)

• 1 turkey breast
• 1 chicken breast
• 1 duck medallion (or breast if you want to do it properly)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt/Pepper

Stuffing:

• 3 cups of sour dough bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon of Thyme
• 1/2 cup of Pine Nuts, roasted
  
• 1/2 cup of dried cranberries or crasins
• 3 rashers of bacon

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Cook in frying pan the bacon until crisp
• Add remaining stuffing ingredients, and fry until well mixed and cooked, set aside to cool
• Butterfly the breast of each bird, cover with a plastic bag and hammer the meat thin using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Try to get the thickness of each breast roughly the same.
• Layer each breast piece, in order, and fill with the stuffing
• Tie up the roast
• Massage the roast with olive oil, salt and pepper
• Cook for roughly 45-60 mins or until cooked through.

SEASONS GREETINGS TO ALL!!

Till next time..we eat!!

Shanks.