Two Fowl For My Kitchen
or
Cornish Cornhole

Behold: HUMANS! the animal kingdom's most voracious apex predator. We kill stuff! We eat it. It's what we were born to do. Whether a creature creeps, slithers, gallops, swims, flies, or squirms, it doesn't matter. It's a potential dinner. Hell, we even like to eat each other.

This is what separates man from beast.

Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday to celebrate Man's triumph over the natural world. And there's no better way to honor our place at the top of the food chain than by indulging in our greatest culinary achievement - animals stuffed inside other animals.

Ever since I found out about Turducken, I've been obsessed with the concept. Apparently I'm not the only one. Multi-bird roasts are becoming more popular every year. This chef went as far as to create a twelve-specie bird roast based on recipes from Medieval times. It feeds 125 people and takes 8 hours to cook, once assembled. You go, dude.

Since I didn't have any other plans for Thanksgiving this year, I thought I'd attempt to follow suit.

I'd never roasted a turkey before, but if millions of Valium-addled housewives can do it every year, so can I.

I'm a bit too much of a novice for 12 birds. At Greg's insistence, we settled on two: A 12 pound turkey, and a 1.5 pound Cornish game hen.

Preparation took about two hours. Greg was good enough to document our poultry adventure step by step. Here's what we did:

First, I cut the skin down the center, and peeled it back off the breast, legs, and thighs. Then,
I made many small incisions in the meat, and filled them with slivers of garlic and green onion.

I put a mixture of rosemary, sage, basil, salt, and pepper on the meat under

the skin, and crammed fresh cilantro leaves throughout.

The Cornish hen received a mushroom, a lime, and some onion up its butt,
and went in the oven for pre-roasting.

Here I am rubbing the outside of the turkey with herbed butter.

I packed over a pound of mushrooms and a pound of sliced onions
in around the meat, under the turkey's skin.

I'm giving the partially roasted hen a good-luck kiss before shoving it up the turkey's fundament.

In it goes!

Greg came up with the idea of closing the skin using toothpicks. Our bird(s) had punk rock appeal.

In the oven, ready to go!

Partially done. Time for a good basting . . .

Finished bird!

The hen is so tender, we can't remove it from the turkey without dismantling it.

Staring into the meat-womb, from which the hen was birthed.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Oh, and may I say that this turkey was the most exceptional Thanksgiving feast I have ever had in my life. The garlic and herbs permeated the turkey to the very bone. With all the veggies releasing their juices inside the skin, Even the breast meat was moist and flavorful. Greg and I each had a turkey drumstick and a game hen leg. The game hen had its own flavor. The meat was so soft, it was like butter. It melted off the bone with the lightest touch. Tender. Complex. A symphony of roast poultry, herbs, onions, and butter. We ate the mushrooms and onions as a side dish. It was so good, I felt drugged afterward.

There simply aren't enough words to describe it. Next year, I'm dong at least 5 birds one inside the other.

P.S. Greg came up with the titles. He just . . . wow. I am jealous I didn't think of "Cornish Cornhole" first.

Dem Bones

or

Broke Stocker

I'm broke, Gentle Readers. But that doesn't mean I can't eat well. If anything, I'm eating better than ever, thanks to cooking so often. One of my favorite foods is soup. It doesn't matter what kind. I just like food that doesn't overtax my misaligned jaw. I like to drink my meals, so to speak (like the blood sucking mosquito woman I am). When I have oodles of cash, I buy it prepared. Usually I go for the specialty stuff in the deli cold-case, but I do cans, too.

Well, that shit is expensive. Rather than give it up, I've gotten savvy. Now I make my own chicken stock out of veritable scraps.

I know there are tons of blogs all over the internet that describe this process, but screw it. I want to do it, too. I want you, Gentle Readers to picture me shuffling around the kitchen with a bottle of wine, ham-handedly pitching chicken parts at a stockpot. Here we go:

1) Buy a rotisserie chicken at Sam's Club for 5 bucks. Get the meatiest, largest bastard you can find. Greg and I did some weight comparison once, and there's a pound difference between the biggest and smallest ones. Observe:

2) Carve that bitch. You want dem bones for the stock, as well as the back meat, wings, and any gristle and skin. Reserve the breast meat for scrammitches or pasta or whatever. Eat the leg meats if you're hungry for chicken right away, but save the bones and skin. Or just strip the leg meat too. Cut off the wings and save them. Leave the meat on the back of the carcass. Except for the oysters. Because they are, as they say, les sot-l'y-laisse. Eat them while the chicken is still warm from the store.

3) Get your hands on some onions of any color you like. Yellow tends to be cheapest. If you're as broke as me, you can just use the brown, papery skins and chopped-off ends of each onion, and put the edible parts in a ziplock in the fridge. Get about 4 onions' worth of rubbish.

4) Get some celery. It doesn't matter if it's brownish or ugly. As long as it hasn't liquefied, you can use it. As with the onions, if you're broke, cut all the leafy bits and bottoms off of your nice edible ribs, and put the pretty bits in the fridge. What a great use for rubbish. Oh yeah, and those tiny baby ribs in the very center that are too small to eat - those go in the pot, too.

5) Carrot time. I used some bulk baby carrots that had seen better days, but you could use any. Even the "normal" carrots you see on sale in the grocery store. Tops, tips, wilted, whatever. You get it.

6) Raid your fridge. Eww, slimy scallions. A few salvageable sprigs of Italian parsley. A bell pepper on the verge of collapse. Mushroom stems. Why-the-fuck-do-we-have chives. You name it, it will probably work, and will probably kick ass. Me, I had some leeks I had bought on sale at the Asian market 3 weeks prior. Pulled off the outer layer, and they were good to go.

7) Time to bust things up. Rough chop your veggies (you'll be straining them out later). Pry apart your chicken carcass with your hands, and try to break a few of the bones. Separate rib-cage from spine. Rend the fragile wing bones and howl at the moon.

8) You must have cloves of garlic, chopped in half. This is non-negotiable. You must have many. Like, 7 of them

9) Throw all your goodies in whatever big pot you have available. Fill the rest of the pot with water, plus a goodly slosh of whatever wine you're drinking at the moment. Add peppercorns if you have them. And if you want to be as cool as me, throw in 2 or 3 bay leaves. BUT DON'T ADD SALT. You can salt the stock when you turn it into soup.

10) Put the disgusting-looking swill on the stove. Bring it to a simmer, then turn it down just a touch, and throw a lid on it. After 1 hour, your house should smell fantastic. Simmer for 3-4 hours. Uncover. Skim off any white foam that comes to the top. Allow the liquid to reduce a little for another 30 to 60 minutes. Eyeball it. Give it a taste. Too weak? Let more liquid die off. Too strong? No such animal.

11) Allow the swill to cool. Strain out all the solids. You are now the proud owner of a pot of chicken stock.

12) If you put your stock in the fridge overnight, you can skim off all the fat that rises to the surface. It doesn't taste any different, and it's healthier that way.

13) You can freeze stock.

14) Make some SOUP. Or something. I mean, you could use it to cook rice or veggies, I guess, but then you wouldn't have SOUP. Maybe next time I'll give you a soup recipe.

You wouldn't believe the awesome stuff that Greg and I have made with our stocks. Soups, of course. And Greg reduced some of his so much, it became a syrupy chicken demi glace. We've been adding spoonfuls of the demi to our sauteed veggies, and nearly weeping at the glory.

Happy carcass boiling!

Edit: 10/9/2010 A vegetarian friend of mine reminded me that you can do the same thing with just the veggie peels and tops and whatnot to create veggie stock. Thanks, dude. I should have mentioned that! But yes, it works equally well that way. (Though, if I were going to do that, I'd use a few whole onions as well, instead of just tops. Maybe reduce it a little more than usual. Still delicious!)

Meathead
or
A Few of My Favorite Things

Shut up, raw vegan foodies. Just shut the fuck up. I am so sick of your religious fervor for the meatless "lifestyle."

Look at my incisors. They were made for ripping flesh off the bone. I am an omnivore by design, and a carnivore in my heart of hearts. Therefore, meat is my divine right.

Vegetarianism is stupid. Veganism is even worse. Plants have their place, but nothing beats the taste of blood. Give me a steak, lightly seared, so the inside is still cool and purple. I want to feel the texture of the muscle. That's food for life, right there, protein and vitamins and the unmatched satiety that comes from knowing: "Yes, I am at the top of the food chain! I am Human, destroyer of cows!"

Give me the roasted femur of some flightless fowl, and I'll gnaw it like a starved cavewoman. Look at that, the bone fits right in my sticky little hand. Fuck tofu, this shit is portable.

Hey PETA, you see a "sea kitten," and I sea food. Gut that gorgeous little bastard! Filet 'im while he's still gasping for air. Don't bother with the pots and pans. Just give him to me sushi style so I can rub wasabi into his squirming flesh and pick at him sliver by sliver like a finicky cat.

It is my goal in life to eat as many different kinds of animal as I possibly can before I die. I want to eat a fucking zoo. Hell, if it weren't illegal, and I weren't afraid of prion disease, I'd probably eat a human, too.

Is it wrong that I get a little turned on by the taste of blood?