Assembling a Turducken

1. Wash your hands scrupulously, or protect them with a pair of disposable kitchen gloves. Lay the deboned or semi-deboned turkey, skin-side down, on a clean cutting board or other well-scrubbed, easily cleaned work surface. Season the exposed surface with salt and pepper, poultry seasoning or other herbs and spices, as desired.

2. Mound prepared stuffing loosely over the turkey. The bird should be stuffed loosely, to help heat penetrate to the middle and leave the stuffing food-safe, so use just enough to make a thin layer.

3. Retrieve the duck from your refrigerator, place it skin-side down on top of the filled turkey, and open it up. Season the inside of the duck; then spread it loosely with stuffing as well. This can be the same stuffing you'd used for the turkey, or you can opt to make three separate kinds of stuffing.

4. Place the chicken on top of the duck, skin-side down, and spread its sides to open it up. Mound it loosely with stuffing; the bird shouldn't be tightly packed once it's rolled.

5. Lift the sides of the turkey and force the edges together, so they meet and surround the other birds. If at all possible, try to have a gloved helper available to hold the sides in place for you. Secure the sides in their position by wrapping and tying the bird with butcher twine, or create a more natural appearance by stitching the bird shut with a poultry needle and finer twine. A semi-deboned bird, with wings and drumsticks in place, should now look like an ordinary turkey. If you opted for a fully deboned turkey, you can simply tie the whole bundle with butcher's twine like an oversized roast.

Cooking the Turducken

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the bundled birds in a roasting pan with a rack, if you have it. If not, arrange coarsely chopped onions, carrots and celery in the roaster where they'll hold the roast away from the bottom of the pan. Rest the bird on the vegetables.

2. Insert a meat thermometer or probe thermometer into the center of the roast. A probe thermometer is better, if you have it, because it penetrates further. Cover the roaster with its lid, or with a sheet of heavy aluminum foil if it has no lid, to minimize evaporation during the long cooking time.

3. Roast the turducken until its internal temperature, as measured by the thermometer, reaches 130 degrees Fahrenheit. This can take from 4 to 6 hours, at 325 F. Remove the cover from the birds, and continue to cook until the roast's internal temperature reaches 155 F. Double-check the temperature by testing the roast in several places with an instant-read thermometer.

4. Remove the turducken from your oven and cover it loosely with foil. Let the roast rest on your countertop for 20 to 30 minutes. After the first 10 minutes, it should have reached the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommended food-safe temperature of 165 F. Over the ensuing several minutes, it will cool slightly and become firmer, making it easier to slice.

5. Cut the rested turducken in half lengthwise, and turn one of the halves onto its cut side. Remove the bone-in drumstick and wing, if present, and set them aside. Carve the half-turducken into boneless slices and serve them, or arrange them neatly on a serving tray with the wings and drumsticks in the middle.