Medieval Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Lollipop

Required tools: boning knife, clean pliers, toothpicks. See related blog link for step-by-step photos.

Pull back on the skin of the turkey leg while using a boning knife to gently separate it from the meat. Once you’ve pulled it back to about an inch from the end, don’t bother taking it off yet, just go to the next step. Gently work the skin back towards that small bone-end. Leave the skin on so you’ll have a “handle” to pull it off. There are 3 bone blades towards the thin end of the drumstick. Work the boning knife below them between them and the meat, cutting them loose. Make a cut around the bone, just below the big ball of the meat. Keep cutting around in circles a few times giving it a little pressure (make sure to tilt knife away from your hand slightly in case you slip the knife will go away from you instead of towards you).

After doing this, work the knife under each tendon and bony sticks, cutting upwards (and away) severing them all. Start scraping the bone (with the knife tilted away from you) towards the thin end pushing down all the fragments of meat, tendons, skin, etc.

Use a wad of about 2 to 3 sheets of paper towels to grab the slippery skin and the rest. Pull it off the end of the turkey bone. It probably won’t fully come off. This is where you start twisting it over and over until it comes off. Use the boning knife (cutting away from you always) to work most of the bits off to scrape down to the bone.

Then use the pliers to grab any small pieces that remain in the crevices. Now that we are done with all that, we need to remove all the tendons and bony sticks from the other end. Do this with the pliers and the knife when needed. Some tendons/sticks will come right out with no real meat on them. A couple will come out with a tiny amount of disposable meat on them. Then there are a couple that will start pulling out large portions of meat when you tug on them with the pliers; this is where you start using your boning knife to scrape the meat away from the tendon you are pulling on—eventually it will separate with the tendon coming out and the meat remaining on the drumstick.

Then there is a huge thick bony stick that sits right down tight next to the main bone. Work the boning knife between the two, slicing down as far as you can go without cutting into the ball of the meat.
Once that is free then use the pliers and go down into the ball of meat as far as you reasonably can and break that large bony stick down there that you just separated from the main bone. Scrape the bone downwards off the bone towards the ball and remove the fragments. Push the meat that remains on the mail bone down into a ball (a lollipop). Repeat with both turkey legs.

Season with chicken rub. Then wrap the turkey meat at the end of each bone in bacon and toothpick the bacon where needed. Season again with chicken rub.

Barbecue in your Weber Smokey Mountain (I used an 18-inch one), or your favorite grill at 350 F until an internal temp of 165 F is reached. This will take about an hour to 1:20 depending on the size of your lollipops. Remove them from the grill.

Allow them to cool a bit and then remove all the toothpicks. Glaze with your favorite barbecue sauce and serve with the sides of your liking. Enjoy!