Reading my old post today, with the benefit of 9 years of home cooking experience, some things come to mind:
1. Buy food-safe latex or nitrile gloves. I know I mention it a few times in the original blog post, but seriously, if you are going to be cooking large quantities of meat, you want to invest in a $3-4 box of gloves. They keep your hands from getting all gross, they reduce your water consumption, and I'm going to keep picking them up until someone tells me they are destroying the planet.
2. I don't think I was ever clear on the whole "Butcher's sewing kit" concept. There are things you can buy at some supermarkets around thanksgiving or christmas which are basically very large needles and butcher's twine. You use the large needle to get the twine started, and then can sew up the skin (or muscle) flesh of the animal you're cooking. Hope that helps.
3. On the oven temperature thing: Having some more years of experience with cooking, the fundamental idea is that you want to stay "low and slow" in order to keep your meat from drying out. With turkey/duck/chicken all in one go that can be hard. So set your oven as low as it will allow, baste often, and you'll get good results. But be forewarned that it's going to be somewhat inevitable that the turkey breast meat gets a bit dry. Nobody likes that meat anyway.
4. As promised, here is a replacement video for the now-defunct deboning videos I linked previously. The key is to try to keep the turkey skin whole, and to be careful with the duck, because those duck bones can be dangerous while working with the meat, and super dangerous while eating it.
Turducken Assembly Video
That's all I've got for now. Enjoy!
