Page 223 - Turkey Book from Meathead

YouTube, and rumors (no they are not emu legs). They have become so popular that they were featured on page one of the New York Times once. They are not hard to make at home once you crack the secret recipe, which we have done.
Rather than using ordinary grocery store female turkeys that are usually about 20 pounds, Disney's supplier uses Tom turkeys, male birds that can grow up to 50 pounds, with legs that run about 1 1/2 pounds. Tom drumsticks this large are hard to find but your butcher may be able to order them for you. If not, our recipe works fine with hens' legs, typically 10 to 12 ounces, they will just be smaller and cook faster. Not many stores carry solo turkey legs, but if you ask your butcher, he or she can order them, usually in just a few days. If you can't get them, the recipe works just fine on chicken legs too.
Disney legs are injected with a curing brine that contains both salt and a special curing salt that gives it a pink color, and then the legs are smoked. No wonder most folks say it tastes like ham. That's how they make wet cured ham. Curing is what makes these turkey legs pink. And that's how they sell drinks!
Even if you have an injector, we recommend a slightly dierent method: Soaking in the curing brine since a single needle injector tends to create pockets of brine.
Curing meats is fun and the results are often better than store bought. But curing is very dierent from any other recipe because you are using a preservative, sodium
nitrite. You must read and thoroughly understand the concepts in