Turducken offers twist on traditional turkey

The problem with tradition, Curt George Siffert notes, is that it's always dated. Apparently many feel that way even about the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Thus, the National Turkey Federation (yes, there really is one) reports that non-traditional turkey preparations are the rage this time of year. Desperate to do something different with the holiday bird, people are trying everything from smoking it to grilling it to brining it to deep frying it to stuffing it with blue cornbread dressing.

Now for the truly daring comes the turducken, which, as the name indicates, is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. The birds are first deboned and their cavities filled with dressing -- three different kinds of dressing, one for each bird, if you're a purist.

The turducken has become popular over the last few years thanks to football commentator John Madden and chef Paul Prudhomme who share a passion for the dish and, probably not coincidentally, similar somatypes. Madden first devoured a turducken during the broadcast of a Saints game a few years ago and has been promoting it on air ever since while Prudhomme claims to have invented the tri-bird back in the 1960s.

Actually the concept underlying the turducken goes back much further than that. For example, a time-honored 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 consisted 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 couple of sheep, a few bustards and several carp.

In fact, the technique of stuffing one animal into another can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages. A 13th century cookbook, for example, contained a recipe for a ram stuffed with small birds. By the 19th century Dumas' Le Grand Dictionnaire de la Cuisine offered a recipe for a turkey stuffed into a pig. A Southern recipe from 1832 called for a dove stuffed into a quail, then into a guinea hen, then a duck, then a capon, then a goose, and finally a peacock or a turkey. By comparison, turducken sounds like something out of Cooking Light magazine.

The turducken has been hailed as the first genuine advancement in Thanksgiving since the Pilgrims landed, but preparing one is not for the faint-hearted. The process is time consuming, requires proper equipment and advanced skills, and will leave your kitchen looking like a scene from Nightmare on Elm Street -- a vegetarian's nightmare.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that retains most of the flavor and panache of the original: a turducken roulade. You merely sandwich boneless turkey, duck, and chicken meat between layers of stuffing and roll it up. It's a delicious and attractive conversation piece and really easy. Try one for your holiday table and the only problem you'll have is trying to figure out what wine to serve with it.

Turducken Roulade

This recipe makes 6 to 8 servings. If you need more, rather than making a larger roll simply make another roulade of this same, more manageable, size. Any stuffing will do, though cornbread dressing is perhaps the most authentic given the turducken's Southern roots. If you want to go all out, you can use three different flavors of stuffing as is often done for a classic turducken.

Ingredients:

1 boneless turkey breast (about 2 lbs.)

1 boneless duck breast

1 boneless chicken thigh

3 cups stuffing

8 slices bacon

Directions:

Butterfly turkey breast and with a heavy mallet or rolling pin pound to an even thickness of about 1/2-inch. Similarly pound duck breast and chicken thigh. Cover turkey breast with a layer of stuffing. Lay duck breast on top and cover with additional stuffing. Top with chicken thigh and cover with remaining stuffing. Roll up tightly, jelly-roll style. Lay bacon slices side by side over roll. Wrap tightly in parchment paper, twisting ends to seal. Wrap in aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees, about 1 and 1/2 hours. Remove from oven, let rest 20 minutes, remove foil, paper and bacon strips. Slice and serve.

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