Other Poultry

Buttermilk-Fried Quail with Corn and Blueberry Salad - Astrid Bear
Spatchcocks, Bullfrogs, and Butterflies
What is "spatchcocked"? - Doug Essinger-Hileman
             Bullfrog Chicken - Mary S.
             Butterflied Turkey - Greg White
Turducken
             What Is Turducken? - Jill Bennett
             Turducken (A Chicken In A Duck In A Turkey)
Turkey
             Turkey Tetrazzini - Jill Bennett
             Turkey with Dressing - Sue Reynolds
             Cooking the Turkey - Rowen
             Turkey with Fresh Herbs - Alice Gomez
             Deep-fried Turkey - Bob Saldeen
             Brining a Turkey - Louis Cohen
             The Turkey Shot out of The Oven...!!! - Jack Prelutsky
             Turkey Cranberry Pecan Pizza - Rowen

Buttermilk-Fried Quail with Corn and Blueberry Salad - Astrid Bear
from Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen (a truly fine cookbook!)
1 cup fresh corn kernels
4 quail, semiboneless if available
1 cup buttermilk
2 cup all purpose flour
2 T. kosher salt
2 t. fresh ground pepper
vegetable oil for frying
6 cups arugula, trimmed washed, and dried
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 c. basil leaves, sliced thin
Lemon Vinaigrette (recipe follows)
Parboil the corn for 2 minutes, then drain and plunge corn into ice water.
Remove any excess fat from the quail and clip the two first joints of the wings off. Put quail in a bowl with the buttermilk. In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, and pepper. Dredge the quail in the seasoned flour, tapping them to remove any excess.
Preheat the oven to 400F. On the stove, heat 1/4 inch oil in a heavy pan. Brown the quail on all sides in the hot oil, about 6 minutes total. Transfer the quail to a roasting pan and put in the oven. Roast until cooked through, about 15 minutes. (160F in the thigh).
Toss together the arugula, corn, blueberry, basil, and vinaigrette. Put a mound of salad on each plate and nestle a quail cunningly up next to it.
Serves 4.
Lemon Vinaigrette
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 t. minced shallots
2 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Whisk all together.

Spatchcocks, Bullfrogs, and Butterflies
What is "spatchcocked"? - Doug Essinger-Hileman
Cut down the backbone and "unfold" the chicken so that it lies flat. But by spatchcocking the chicken and laying it out flat, one allows the sauce and smoking to penetrate much more of the chicken. And portioning becomes easier, too. When cooked, simply cut the bird in half down the breastbone, then cut each half in half. Voile -- four right nice servings!

Bullfrog Chicken - Mary S.
I have a wonderful recipe here in a book from Charleston, called "Bullfrog Chicken" on the basis that a chicken, thus spraddled, looks as if you had broiled a large bullfrog.

Butterflied Turkey - Greg White
Butterfly the bird. I don't remember the exact time that a turkey would take if butterflied, but I think it was about 90 minutes.

Turducken
What Is Turducken? - Jill Bennett
I believe this came from New Orleans: Stuff a turkey with a goose which is stuffed with a chicken which is stuffed with a cornish hen or a squab. It requires a lot of boning and I dunno what you stuff the last bird with!

Turducken (A Chicken In A Duck In A Turkey)
We saw this recipe mentioned in a newspaper and tried it for the first time in 1990. It is so much better than a regular turkey that we have made many more turduckens over the years. This is what we do:
The Turducken will need to cook for 12 or 13 hours at 190 degrees F so begin preparation well in advance.
Needs:
20-25 lb whole turkey
4-5 lb whole duckling
3-4 lb whole chicken (or use a larger chicken and place the duckling inside it)
corn bread dressing
sausage stuffing
large roasting pan and rack
cotton string and cheese cloth
Place the cleaned turkey, breast side down, on a flat surface. Cut through the skin along the length of the spine. Using the tip of a knife and starting from neck end, gently separate meat from rib cage on one side. Toward neck end, cut through meat to expose shoulder blade; cut meat away from and around the bone, severing bone at the joint to remove shoulder blade. Disjoint wing between second and third joints. Leave the wing bones and keep the wing attached to the meat.
Continue separating meat from frame, heading toward the thighbone and being careful to keep the "oyster" (pocket of meat on back) attached to skin, rather than leaving with bone. Cut through ball-and-socket joint to release thighbone from carcass (bird will be open on one side, exposing bones left to deal with). Keep the leg attached to the meat.
Repeat boning procedure on the other side of the bird. Carefully remove carcass and reserve for making stock. You should end up with a flat boneless (except for wings and legs) turkey with the skin intact in one large piece. Cover the boned turkey and set aside (or chill).
Repeat the process on the duckling and chicken, but cut off the first two joints of wings, and debone both stumps of wings and leg drumsticks (cut through flesh at thinnest point and trim around these bones with a knife until they can be removed). Trim excess skin and fat from necks of birds. If it is your first time deboning a fowl, it is advisable to practice first on the chicken rather than the turkey. Both the chicken and duck will be stuffed inside the turkey and need not be kept "perfectly" intact. Make stock from the chicken carcass.
Prepare seasoning mix and set aside:
3 tablespoons salt
1-2 tbsp. paprika
1-2 tbsp. garlic powder
1-2 tbsp. pepper
1-2 tsp. dried thyme
Prepare sausage stuffing: Melt butter in large skillet over high heat. Add 3 cups onions and 1-1/2 cups celery. Saute until onions are dark brown but not burned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add 2 lbs sausage (we prefer spicy Italian sausage) to the skillet and cook about 5 minutes or until the meat is browned, stirring frequently. Add paprika (3 tbsp.) and minced garlic (3 tbsp.) and cook about 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in 3 cups of chicken stock and bring to simmer. Continue cooking until water evaporates and oil rises to top, about 10 minutes. Stir in 2 cups toasted bread crumbs and mix well. Add more bread crumbs if mixture is too moist.
Prepare a similar amount of another stuffing such as corn bread stuffing.
At least 13 to 14 hours before dinner, assemble the Turducken.
Spread the turkey, skin down, on flat surface, exposing as much meat as possible. Rub 3 tablespoons of seasoning mix evenly on meat. Spread sausage stuffing over the turkey in an even layer approximately 3/4 inch thick.
Place duck, skin down, on top of stuffing. Season exposed duck meat with about 1 tbsp. of seasoning mix. Spread corn bread stuffing in an even layer (about 1/2 inch thick) over the duck.
Arrange the chicken, skin down, evenly on top of corn bread stuffing. Season chicken meat with seasoning mix. Spread remainder of sausage and/or corn bread stuffing on top of chicken. The assemblage will look something like this.
With another person's help, carefully lift the sides of the layered birds, folding the sides of the turkey together. Have a helper hold the bird while sewing the opening down the back of the turkey together using cotton thread. The bird may not close perfectly, and a strip of cheese cloth can be used to help close the "crack" in the back of the turkey so stuffing will not leak out when the bird is turned over.
Since the turducken has no skeleton, it must be trussed up or it may fall apart in cooking. Tie cotton string around the bird, widthwise, every inch or so along the bird's length. Turn the bird over and place in a roasting rack inside a large roasting pan so it is oriented breast side up and looks like a "normal" turkey. Tie the legs together just above the tip bones.
Heat oven to exactly 190 degrees F. Temperature control is critical since the turducken is so massive that it has to be cooked very slowly at a low temperature. Using an oven thermometer is highly recommended.
Place the bird in the center of the oven and bake until a meat thermometer inserted through to center reads 165 degrees, about 12 to 13 hours. There will be no need to baste, but accumulated drippings will have to be removed from the pan every few hours so that the lower portion does not deep fry in the hot oil. Remove the turducken from the oven and let cool in the pan for an hour before serving. Make gravy according to your favorite recipe.
To serve cut bird in half lengthwise. Carve crosswise so each slice reveals all 3 meats and dressings. Will make 15 to 25 servings.

Turkey
Turkey Tetrazzini - Jill Bennett
1 C sliced mushrooms
3 TBS butter
2 TBS flour
1 C light cream
1 C diced cooked turkey
1 tsp salt
Pepper
1tsp celery salt
1 C cooked spaghetti, cut in 1 inch pieces
1/3 C sherry
Parmesan cheese
Saute mushrooms in butter til tender. Add flour and stir til smooth.
Add cream and cook til thickened, stirring constantly. Add turkey, spices, sherry, pasta and heat thru. Turn into shallow greased baking dish and sprinkle generously with cheese. Place under broiler until browned. 4 servings.
You can make a big batch because it freezes well.

Turkey with Dressing - Sue Reynolds
The way to avoid the fights over sugar in the cornbread is to serve the One True Bread Stuffing.
You take about four 24 oz loaves of Wonder Bread--the soft white squishy stuff that small children like but is essentially tasteless. Tear it apart into little pieces and let it sit out all night, uncovered, to get stale.
In the morning, chop fine at least one big onion or two small onions, and saute them in butter. Not margarine, butter. Add in four or five stalks of chopped celery, and cook until the onion is translucent and the celery is tender. Dump it on top of the big bowl of bread.
Consult your family as to what will be rejected with loathing, and if acceptable, slice fine circles from a half pound of Polish kielbasa and add it to the bread. If your family is still friendly, add a drained small can of sliced water chestnuts. Liberally salt and pepper the bread mixture.
Take six cups of good chicken broth, and pour it over the bread. It should be thoroughly wet, not just damp in spots. If not, add more chicken broth.
It is acceptable to use chicken soup base, which has chicken as the main ingredient, to make the broth, but real broth is better. Boullion cubes are NOT ALLOWED. You do not want salt, fat, and caramel coloring to be your equivalent of chicken broth.
Add about two tablespoons of sage to the stuffing, and maybe a dash of chopped garlic (not garlic salt, real garlic). Mix it all together with your hands. The volume will be much less than the bread was by itself, but still too much to fit into the turkey. What doesn't fit in the turkey goes into a nice little ovenproof dish that you have greased in advance, and you pop it into the refrigerator to sit there, nicely chilled, until about an hour before you are going to serve the turkey. Then you bake it, so you have enough stuffing to serve with leftovers at Friday lunch.
As for the turkey--defrost it in a pan in the refrigerator, so any blood doesn't drip out onto the pumpkin pie on the shelf just below the bird. Rinse it thoroughly and remove the little plastic bag with the giblets, and wrestle the neck out of the body cavity, and then rinse it again, including both body cavities, until you don't see any turkey blood. Stuff the cavities loosely with the stuffing--don't pack it tight or the turkey can explode. It happened to my mother once! Rub the critter with some sort of fat--butter or (gasp) solid vegetable shortening, and put it in a nice big roaster pan to cook at 300 degrees or so, with an aluminum foil tent until the last thirty minutes. Baste it with more chicken broth while it's cooking, or use the pan drippings.
Timing of the roasting time depends on whether the bird is stuffed or not and how much it weighs--consult a standard cookbook. Let the turkey sit for twenty minutes after you remove it from the oven before you carve it, and after Thanksgiving dinner is over, get the meat off the bones to chill quickly, and boil the carcass for turkey broth and soup. (Add appropriate vegetables to the broth after you strain out all the bones, and cook them until tender--good grief, you do know how to cook, don't you?)
The best part is cold sliced turkey with Durkee's sauce and cold stuffing with hot gravy on it for dinner the night after Thanksgiving.

Cooking the Turkey - Rowen
The best way to make the turkey cook in less time, and be crispy brown and juicy w/o adding extra fat, is to use the Brown-In Bags. With them, you can have a big turkey, and not have to get up to get the turkey in the oven at 5 am.

Turkey with Fresh Herbs - Alice Gomez
These days, I make the bread, and get fresh herbs from the garden, but the poultry is still store-bought. And to make the turkey cook a little faster, I've quit stuffing the turkey with the dressing and instead stick a bunch of fresh sage, rosemary, marjoram, and thyme in the cavity, and bake the dressing in a separate dish. Smells heavenly, tastes even better.

Deep-fried Turkey - Bob Saldeen
Better yet--deep fry it. Something like 3.5 minutes per pound. The skin is wonderfully golden brown and crispy, the insides moist and wonderful. About 45 minutes for your average bird. We use peanut oil from Sam's (granted, $20 worth) but it's worth every penny. (Sam's is a "warehouse/wholesale club" in the US).
We cooked our bird last year using this method, and we'll do it again this year. Wonderful...

Brining a Turkey - Louis Cohen
To cook a tasty, moist turkey, brine it first. The brine will keep it moist, deliver seasonings to the meat inside, speed cooking, and even the cooking time between the breasts and thighs. The basic brine is:
Per gallon of water:
1 cup kosher salt (of 1/2 cup table salt)
1 cup sugar or brown sugar or molasses or corn syrup or maple syrup (i.e., your favorite sweetener)
Seasonings you like, e.g., garlic powder, onion powder, sage, chile, etc.
Mix well so that the salt and sugar dissolve.
Remove the turkey innards, and immerse the bird in the brine. Use a non-reactive pot that will fit in your 'fridge, or one of those oven cooking bags (useless for cooking) that will fit in a pot that will fit in the 'fridge. If the bird/pot won't fit, you can use a cooler - add plenty of ice to the brine. I have even brined a large turkey in the stainless-steel kitchen sink, with lots of ice, but I don't recommend it.
Brine a large turkey 24 hours at least; 2 - 3 days is even better.
Here are some other more elaborate brines:
Hound's Citrus Brine
2 gallons water
2 cups kosher salt
3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
juice of 3 oranges
juice of 3 limes
juice of 3 lemons
rinds from oranges, limes and lemon;
1 sliced white onion
1 head of garlic, crushed
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
4 serranos to taste
2 tbs rough ground cumin
2 tbs rough ground coriander
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
The Fat Man's Chicken Kickin' Brine
1 gallon water
5/8 cups pickling salt.
1 1/2 tbs light brown sugar
1 1/2 tbs garlic powder
1/2 tbs chili powder
1/2 tbs ground sage
1 tbs crushed red pepper
1/2 tbs fresh black pepper
2 whole bay leaves
1/2 tbs old bay seasoning
1 tbs Italian seasoning
Combine all the ingredients in a stock pot. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to a simmer. Simmer and stir frequently until all the ingredients are dissolved. Allow to cool to room temperature before immersing the meat.
When you're ready to cook, drain and rinse the bird thoroughly; pat dry. If you have time and like crispy skin, put the dry bird back in the 'fridge for a while, uncovered. Season again (no more salt please!) - you won't need butter or oil under the skin to keep it moist, but if you like the flavor, by all means. Slices of citrus under the skin, especially with the citrus brine above, are good.
The best way to roast the bird is in your BBQ with indirect heat: here are instructions from Sunset Magazine:
On a charcoal barbecue (20 to 22 in. wide) with a lid, mound and ignite 40 charcoal briquets on firegrate. When coals are spotted with gray ash, in about 20 minutes, push equal portions to opposite sides of firegrate. Place a foil drip pan between mounds of coals. To each mound, add 5 briquets and 1/2 cup drained soaked wood chips now and every 30 minutes (until all chips are used). Set grill in place. Set turkey, breast up, on grill over drip pan. Cover barbecue and open vents.
On a gas barbecue (with at least 11 in. between indirect-heat burners), place 1 cup drained soaked wood chips in the metal smoking box or in a foil pan directly on heat in a corner. Turn heat to high, close lid, and heat for about 10 minutes. Adjust gas for indirect cooking (heat parallel to sides of bird and not beneath) and set a metal or foil drip pan in center (not over direct heat). Set grill in place. Set turkey, breast up, on grill over drip pan. Close barbecue lid. Add another cup of wood chips (sprinkle through or lift grill) every 30 minutes until all are used. If edges of turkey close to heat begin to get too dark, slide folded strips of foil between bird and grill. Fat in drippings may flare when barbecue lid is opened; quench by pouring a little water into the pan.
If your BBQ or oven will accommodate it, cook your turkey on a vertical stand, preferably neck down. The vertical stand seems to promote even cooking, and you get more usable dark meat - the fat drips off instead of inundating the dark meat.
You can cook the brined bird at a hotter temperature, say, 375 - 400 degrees, for crisper skin and more internal juice. Even at the same oven temperature, the brined bird will cook faster.
After the bird comes out of the BBQ/oven, let it rest 30-45 minutes before carving - you'll have a juicier result.

The Turkey Shot out of The Oven...!!! - Jack Prelutsky
The turkey shot out of the oven
And rocketed into the air,
It knocked every plate off the table
And partly demolished a chair.
It ricocheted into a corner
And burst with a deafening boom,
Then splattered all over the kitchen,
Completely obscuring the room.
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
It totally coated the floor,
There was turkey attached to the ceiling,
Where there'd never been turkey before.
It blanketed every appliance,
It smeared every saucer and bowl,
There wasn't a way I could stop it,
That turkey was out of control.
I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
And thought with chagrin as I mopped,
That I'd never again stuff a turkey
With popcorn that hadn't been popped.
(Author Unknown)

Turkey Cranberry Pecan Pizza - Rowen
Layer an unbaked pizza crust, in this order
1 c. chopped cooked turkey
some chopped onion - optional
1 c. dried cranberries, softened in a T. or so of boiling water for 5 minutes
1 c. coarsely chopped pecans
1/2 c. mozzarella, shredded
1 small can pizza sauce
appropriate herbs and spices - oregano, basil, salt, pepper, 'Italian' herbs - whatever you'd normally add to a canned sauce or put in a homemade one.
1 c shredded fresh parmesan
Bake according to crust directions (I used a Betty Crocker package, and I think baked it about 14 minutes on the lowest rack at 375.)