October 24, 2009

Heavenly Turducken Burgers

My wife asked me to cook dinner for her birthday, and only required that I make something I thought she'd like. I have no culinary training, but I'd been playing with the idea of rethinking the turducken (a southern Thanksgiving dish), so I decided to try it.

After a discussing possible ideas with friends, I chose to cook turducken burgers (or more accurately, turducken sliders, a.k.a. mini-burgers). I can't really duplicate how I came up with the recipe. Suffice it to say it involved web research, trial and error, instinct, and guesswork.


But when grilled as suggested and topped with cheddar cheese, my homemade turducken sliders were absolutely amazing. Probably the best burgers I ever ate, and that includes the $18 burger at Craigie on Main.

So without further delay, here is the recipe.

(Note: just to cover myself legally, please make sure you handle the birds and/or meat carefully, practice proper sanitation, wash your hands and utensils often and liberally, and cook the burgers completely. If anyone asks for a "medium rare" turducken burger, give 'em a dope-slap and cook it all the way through. You will both feel better in the end.)

Ingredients:
  • 7 oz. ground turkey
  • 7 oz. ground duck
  • 7 oz. ground chicken
(It's okay to buy these at a butcher shop or supermarket, if you can find them. But if you can't you'll have to grind your own, and that is the only difficult part of the recipe. I found ground turkey and chicken but had to grind my own duck; click here for tips on how.)
  • 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
  • 3 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons butter, softened but not melted
  • 2 small garlic cloves, finely minced (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
  • your favorite vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
  • salt and pepper for seasoning
  • cheddar cheese (the good stuff, you won't regret it), sliced
  • small buns/rolls (about 2" square, with a crust that isn't too hard)

Preparation:

Once you have all the ingredients as listed, crank up your gas or charcoal grill to full heat. While the grill warms up, here is what you do.

Slice 7 of your burger buns in half, and place them on a plate.

In a large bowl, use your hands to mix all three meats together, working them for about a minute until they are pretty well integrated. They will be slightly different colors, so it should be easy to tell.

Add the butter, garlic, sage, and parsley to the meat and mix that for about a minute or two, until the ingredients are fully integrated.

Get a plastic or glass cutting board (don't use wood!). Divide the mix into 7 portions (about 3 oz. each), shape them into small burgers, and place them on the cutting board, separated by at least an inch on each side. Size them so they will fit on the buns -- they will not shrink much during cooking.

Once the burgers are on the board, season to taste with salt and pepper (fresh ground pepper if you have it).

Pour some vegetable oil into a small bowl, and brush each burger across the top. This will be the side that goes on the grill, and the oil is there to make sure the sliders don't stick. Note: before you start cooking, check that you have enough oil to brush the other side before flipping.

Bring the cutting board with burgers, the oil and brush, the sliced cheese, and the buns out to the grill. Also take a holding plate for the cooked burgers.

One at a time, place the burgers on the grill, oil-side down. Close the lid, and set your timer for 3 minutes. I cooked them 3 minutes on a side, but that's just a guideline -- your results may vary. While you wait, this is a good time to put the cutting board in the sink or dishwasher and wash your hands again.

When the timer goes off, open the grill, quickly brush each burger with oil and flip them (it might produce some flames, don't worry as long as it doesn't get out of hand). Close the lid and set your timer for 3 more minutes.

When the timer reaches 1 minute (or 45 seconds if it's a macho grill), put the buns on the grill, place some sliced cheese on the burgers, and close the lid again. Depending on how powerful your grill is you might have to remove the buns after 30 seconds. You want them toasted, not scorched.

When the timer goes off, check one of the burgers for doneness (there should be NO PINK at all -- we're dealing with poultry here!) and either cook them a bit longer or remove them to the holding plate.

Believe it or not, that's it. Put 'em on the buns and eat 'em while they are hot. I served them without any condiments -- though you're free to improvise, *I* sure did :)

I hope you like yours as much as I did mine. Butchering and grinding the duck was challenging, but well worth the effort. The turducken burgers sort of reminded me of buffalo burgers, but when combined with the cheddar cheese they surpassed the best I ever tasted.

Please let me know if you try this recipe and especially if you come up with any good variations or suggestions to improve the turducken sliders.

Happy eating!

- Scott

PS. The only restaurant I found with turducken burgers is in Philadelphia (restaurant review and menu). They don't grind their duck (insert raunchy joke here), so they aren't as fully integrated as what I made. But suffice it to say that next time I'm in Philly I plan to stop in and try one!

How to make Gound Duck

This is a primer on how to make ground duck. I'm not an expert in this field, but I couldn't find any butcher shop that would do it for me so I wanted to provide some guidance for people who want to try my Turducken Burger recipe (link). Suffice it to say that if you undertake this procedure it is at your own risk, and that I bear no legal or moral responsibility if things go horribly wrong. Always be careful with food sanitation, especially when dealing with poultry.


Before you start, you can't grind duck without some sort of machine. There are three kinds, manual, stand-alone units, and meat grinding attachments for mixers. If you don't own a grinder, you will have to buy or borrow one before you start. I read on the web that a hand mixer is best for grinding poultry, but I used a KitchenAid stand mixer with a grinding attachment.

First things first; here is a video on how to get the most meat from your duck:



Note that this video doesn't mention the gizzards (that come inside a packaged duck) or the wings -- but we won't be using those for the ground duck.

Once I deboned my duck, I removed all the fat and skin and the bones from the legs. It might sound complicated, but if I can do it so can you. Take your time and remember, you only need 7 oz. of ground duck for the recipe, so even if you don't get every last morsel you should have plenty.

Once I had all the duck meat I was going to get, I cut it into small pieces, about 1" square. I placed those on a flexible plastic cutting board, spaced out so they weren't touching.

Then I chilled the duck meat in the freezer for 15 minutes, took it out and flipped the pieces over, and put it back in the freezer for another 10 minutes. This didn't actually freeze the duck, but it chilled it enough to make the grinding a lot easier.

I set up my grinding machine and once I took out the cold duck, I used the medium to medium-high speed to grind it quickly.

That is about it... good luck with whatever you are using the ground duck for.

- Scott