naomikritzer | Turducken

A turducken is a mostly deboned turkey (it still has wings and legs with bones) stuffed with a deboned duck stuffed with a deboned chicken, with a bunch of stuffing in there as well for good measure. I have wanted to try one of these ever since reading about them, but there was no way I was actually going to try to make one. I am a fairly adventurous cook, but any recipe that starts off with the word "debone" is one I page right on past.

You can, however, buy pre-made turducken. They have them at fancy grocery stores, or you can order them. My sister,

springbok1, has also always wanted to try turducken, so at Thanksgiving she asked if we'd be interested in having one for Christmas dinner. She'd provide a store-bought turducken; we'd cook it (along with the rest of the meal) and have her over to eat it. Ed and I both liked the idea, so she bought the turducken last weekend and delivered it, thawed (or mostly thawed) this morning.

The instructions on the turducken say to allow 4 1/2 hours to cook if it's fully thawed, 6 if it's not. It took almost exactly 4 1/2 hours. We made candied sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts to go with it. We weren't really sure what side dishes would go with turducken, and I have to say, there isn't a side dish in the world that would really stand up to it; the turducken itself is just too overwhelming an experience.

And it's good. Really, really, really good. It was a 15 pound turducken; some of that is stuffing, but almost none of it is bone. We -- three adults, and two children -- consumed about two-thirds of that, all of us massively overeating because it was so damn good. Molly requested multiple additional helpings of the meat and the cornbread stuffing; Kiera started with the rice, liked that, then moved on to the meat, and ate a ton of that. I kept finishing what was on my plate, then deciding to take just a tiny bit more, then just a little more, then just a little more...

If you have the opportunity to eat one of these, go for it.

If you think you'd like one but worry that the store-bought ones would be labor intensive or not very good -- it was ridiculously easy (you need a large roasting pan, a meat thermometer, and an oven) and did I mention that it was really, really good? Because it was. Even though I'm still stuffed to the gills (an hour or two after dinner, we had plum pudding with hard sauce, and pecan pie with whipped cream) just writing about it is making me think about how we have some leftovers in the fridge, and I could go heat some up... Anyway, you should get one. And invite us over.

As for the rest of Christmas: the girls enjoyed their gifts, though by early afternoon they were hauling out the pop-up play-house (which they've owned since last spring) instead of playing with their new stuff. It was a very nice day. And now I'm going to go to bed and sleep off that dinner. Merry Christmas and/or happy Chanukah, everyone.