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.