May I highly recommend the services of the good people at Cashmere Cuisine who supplied me with the meat, all of which was organic free range. They didn't even charge me to debone the birds, which I suspect reflected their bemusement.
"So you've done this before then?"
"Nup."
"Oh, you've seen it done then?"
"Nup."
"... oh."
"I know what I'm doing!"
... which was mostly accurate.
The night before the morning after
First thing was to sort out the bones - too good a resource to waste. They nearly didn't all fit in the stock pot and after a few hours simmering away we ended up with a thick gelatinous stock sludge that smelled amazing. Most of it is now in the freezer, labelled superstock. Some carrots and celery gave their lives in the name of flavoursomeness.
By this stage the cat had figured out that something exciting and meat related was happening, so she had to be booted out.
She still had the eye of the tiger though, so credit where it's due.
I decided to make three types of stuffing, which required a lot of bread.
However, I cheated - I knew I was going to run out of time so I used some package stuff (Gregg's "Homestyle", whatever that means) and bulked it out with stock, extra bread and some other ingredients. Often stuff from packets is over-seasoned and super salty but ekeing it out this way seemed to be okay. I would do it properly next time, with better prep, because I am generally a packaged food bigot and I like to know what I'm eating. I'm looking at you, "flavour enhancer".
- Stuffing 1 was sauteed onion and celery with fresh sage, stock, and two types of bread crumbs.
- Stuffing 2 was similar, but with less onion and lots of diced dried apricot and sauteed mushroom.
- Stuffing 3 (not in the picture below, it was in the fridge) was onion sauteed with free range pork sausage (happy pigs make tasty pigs) with grated apple and lots of proper breadcrumbs and stock.
In the interim I had also made a giant carrot cake, just for shits and giggles (also, the batter tastes nice).
I have never brined anything before but I have it on good authority that this is the way to do things (thanks Cat) and I was worried about everything being a bit dry and manky. I got most of my helpful information from here and settled on a mixture of salt, brown sugar and mangled bits of orange. I was going to add more but Mr Longbean told me to stop fussing, probably for the best. There are ice cubes in the left hand one as the water was a bit warm from dissolving the salt and I didn't want to confuse the turkey.
It would have made terrible punch.
Being oblivious, I never really considered how much room this was going to take up as it was far too warm outside to just jam them in the laundry overnight and I didn't want to poison everyone (best birthday surprise ever!) so the Christmas cake got kicked out of its container, the punch bowl was requisitioned and most of the fridge was cleared out.
Gross. The naked bird spa party lasted maybe 12 or 14 hours. The chicken and the duck got to share.
By this stage I had been in the kitchen for nearly 6 hours and was getting tired and grumpy and wanted to sit on the couch and drink beer and watch local satirical comedy. Mr Longbean had bought me a sweet new apron for my birthday, so at least I was still looking good.
Birdageddon
After going to the swimming pool and going ffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuhhhhh what the hell am I thinking (about the bird, not the pool) I channelled my inner Dexter and prepared the plastic and the gloves.
I love latex gloves, for reals.
Next, the stuffings, warmed slightly after a night in the fridge. You're not really meant to prep the stuffing the day before but there was no way I was going to get up at 5am to start cooking so that's the way it goes. Some extra superstock and fresh-stale bread helped things loosen up a bit.
Roger Sutton looks on in awe.
I rinsed the birds thoroughly as no one likes having a salt lick for dinner, and patted them dry. The turkey was too mighty for mere paper towels and needed a clean bath towel all of its very own.
I've never really eaten much in the way of turkey that wasn't housed inside a Subway sub, so it's easy to forget that they are humongous. Even with all its bones out this one weighed a good 5kg - I had to weigh it by standing on the bathroom scales, like a vet, only my bird was well past saving.
I seasoned it (and all the other birds) with sumac, because sumac is wonderful and enhances flavour without saltiness and tastes like the flavouring on barbecue flavoured Shapes crackers. Then, I layered stuffing over the top, and then another bird, and so on.
Here is where I made a total rookie error - I overstuffed the birds. Stuffing expands as things cook and it would come back to bite me in the ass later. Oops. At least the bird strata looked lovely.
In the end the chicken was slightly larger than the duck, so instead of a turducken we had a turchickuck, but it doesn't roll off the tongue quite so well and I don't like it when the name of my dinner sounds like someone retching. (See also borscht.)
Pulling the whole thing together took two sets of hands, large and small metal skewers, a needle and thread, brute force and lots of swearing. We pulled the duck together, then the chicken, and held everything mostly together as we went along.
... no comment.
Eventually the whole thing was tied together, although next time (there will be a next time?) I will get a needle with a bigger eye, or smaller string, or something generally less aggravating. We needed pliers to facilitate the sewing process and I nearly got a needle in the eye.
Neither Mr Longbean nor I will make very good field surgeons.
Once everything was sewn up, the skewers were removed and the Russian nesting bird was forced into an enamel roaster. It was rubbed down with olive oil and sumac - I had planned on glazing it with some nice mysterious apricot chutney stuff we got inside a gift basket but in the heat of the moment I forgot.
Hurrah, stick it in the oven at 160°C (fan forced), and all that. So far so good.
When I pulled it out of the oven after an hour I realised the error of my stuffing ways as it looked like a chestburster had been on the scene.
Oops. Covered it with foil, stuck it back in. After another couple of hours I realised that the oven was on the wrong setting and I had a significant panic - see that charring? Might it have been the grill? I dunno, I'm too mortified to say. Luckily the bird was so big that the heat wasn't circulating very evenly anyway so it all worked out well. A mistake not to be repeated.
Meanwhile, I iced the cake with cream cheese frosting and drank a bunch of beer and fizzy wine and generally stressed myself senseless sorting out the house.
After about 6 hours, maybe longer, the bird was done - thanks Mr Oven Thermometer, you were swell and utterly invaluable in making sure I didn't poison 50-odd of my nearest and dearest. My stepfather, who has meat-fu, was put in charge of the carving as it was going to be a bastard trying to get it out of the pan (I'd had a cunning plan for this but forgot to enact it when I first put the bird in to cook). I did not take a picture of the finished bird as it looked rough as guts, and it didn't slice nicely due to the fact that it looked like something had gnawed its way out of the middle. But the finished product was moist and mighty tasty, and it was a bit of a lucky dip as to which bits you got.
Epic pot luck ensued, much food was eaten by many people, the keg was drunk dry and only one glass got broken.
There weren't many leftovers.
It took a lot of time and money but I would definitely do this again. Notes for the future:
- don't overstuff
- remember to secure an exit strategy
- truss better and more aggressively
- glaze with something interesting
- make sure to get in line before most of the meat has gone
Thanks for a lovely birthday guys, perhaps next time I'll add a whole piglet or, at the very least, bacon strips.
