Was pretty rushed for this turkey day, but made some time to smoke some thunder chicken. Got a whole bird (19#er) and took it apart. Saved the wings, neck, and giblets to make some smoked stock later this week. Injected the breasts with salted butter and in the fridge overnight with heavy salt on the skin. Deboned the thighs and pulled out all of the tendons with a pair of Channel Locks. Sorry no pics of the prep, I was by myself and pretty dirty. To make the stuffing, I reconstituted some chopped figs and cranberries in some Gran Marnier & water - brought to a boil and let it sit until I was ready. Sweated some onions and celery until soft and added some sausage. Cooked through and then added the fig/cranberries (& juice), some chopped rosemary/thyme, and some stock. Let that reduce for a while and added that to a bowl full of stuffing mix (plain), an egg, and toasted almonds. Mixed all that together and added stock to get the consistency I wanted. I put the deboned thighs, skin side down, added salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary and put a thin layer of the dressing on top. Rolled all that up, wrapped in cling, and put that all in the fridge overnight. The next AM, put it in the freezer to firm up the outside a bit before unwrapping from cling and tying with butchers twine. Smoked the breast and roulade for 4.5 hours until 165 in the breast and the middle of the roulade was 180. I wrapped both in foil and took them to the mountains. Cut it all up about 3 hours after pulling off the smoker and it was all just absolutely amazing. Pulled the skin off and made come cracklings in a cast iron skillet.......MMMMMMMM..... Turkey.
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