Psychasthenia: neurotic lassitude, indecision; doubts, tics and phobias.


Believe it or not, deboning 3 species of fowl in 2 hours is easily done.

Make sure you have a very sharp knife - a boning knife is preferable, but not necessary. Put all of the bones and giblets into the stockpot as soon as you cut it away from the flesh. Also, be careful not to cut through the skin while deboning.

Put the turkey breast-side down on a clean towel (to soak up all the turkey juices). Starting at the neck, make a cut down one side of the spine, all the way down to the butt. Slowly cut the meat away from the rib cage, until you reach the shoulder blade and thigh joint. Cut the meat away from the joints and sever the joints so that the legs fall away from the body. Continue cutting the meat away from the ribcage until you reach the breastbone, or sternum thingee. Then go back to the other side of the spine and do the same thing. Be extra-careful not to cut through the skin at this point. What I did was slice through the cartilage at the front of the breatbone. When the ribcage was removed, it was easy to just pull the remaining cartilage off the meat.

Now at this point, you'll be wondering about the thighs and wings. Hold onto the thigh knuckle bone thing, and slice the meat away from the bone, working down towards the drumstick. When you reach the drumstick knuckle bone, sever the joint and remove the thigh bone. The drumstick bone will remain in the drumstick. Do the same thing with the large part of the wing, removing the largest wing bone but leaving the others. Once this is done, you should be left with a deflated turkey, with only the drumstick bones and wings remaining.

Trim excess skin from the chicken and duck. Cut off the first two sections of the wings and add them to the stock pot. To debone these two birds, do the same thing you did with the turkey, only this time remove ALL of the bones, including the drumsticks and the first sections of the wings. Just pull the legs inside out, using your boning knife to shave the meat away from the bone.

I'm sorry I don't have more detailed pictures of the deboning process, but it was so easy it didn't seem necessary - and I'm not exactly a wizard in the kitchen. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Just make sure you have a good knife - the purchase of a proper boning knife is well worth it.

I made a mistake here, by trimming the skin from the turkey before I started deboning it. I took too much skin off, and when it came time to sew the turducken together, we had to work extra hard to draw enough skin together to join the two sides. Luckily, Sherry's sewing skills saved the day.


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