Deep Fried Turkey

Our family's favorite recipe is for Deep Fried Turkey. However, this is not for the faint of heart. It requires very little in the way of cooking skilz, but a huge attention to safety. But first a little story: Matt (my husband) had a life-long dream of deep frying a turkey. A few thanksgiving's ago he ordered this baby from amazon.  I alerted all our friends and family of our plans for the bird. Over the course of the next few days we received a link to this video from at least 10 people.

It was hard not to miss their point. We decided to regroup. The next year was spent researching and scouring the internet—reading every post on every message board (honey, did you know that deep fried roast beef is supposed to be amazing?). So, when thanksgiving rolled around we were ready. Are you ready? First read these pros and cons.
Pros
The most succulent moist turkey you ever will eat
Much quicker—cooks at 5 minutes per pound versus 20 minutes in a conventional oven
Doesn't use the oven—it's totally free for all the other stuff
Extremely Impressive. Really. It looks beautiful and especially if you live in New York City it will amaze everyone.
Cons
Extremely dangerous
Some one must guard that deep fryer with their life. Cannot be left unattended even for a bathroom break.
20 gallons of boiling hot oil
Requires meticulous attention to directions so that you don't get third degree burns or worse set your neighborhood on fire.
Bottom Line

Obviously, I think making the most succulent moist turkey you'll ever eat outweighs the other issues. And if you agree, let's get to the recipe after the jump (and we won't bore the scaredy cats with it)

1. Two days before the big day take your completely defrosted turkey and place it in the pot of your deep-fryer. Then fill with water until your bird is covered with two inches of water. Carefully mark this with a sharpie. This is how much oil you will be placing in the pot. Don't guess! If you have too much oil, it will bubble over and cause a fire.
2. Now take your bird out and for best results brine it using 1 cup of salt for every gallon of water. You may need a really large vessel for this or a gigantic ziplock bag. Do this for twelve hours remove the turkey, rinse it off and put it in a pan uncovered in the fridge so it can begin drying off before fry day.

3. Yay! It's thanksgiving day. Take your turkey out of the fridge and make sure it's completely dry. Use paper towel, blow dry it—I'm not even kidding, there can be no water on this turkey. And now, one of you needs to go out side and start heating up oil. You can use peanut, canola, vegatable—but get it started earlier than you think, especially if it's cold it takes a long time to heat all that oil.

4. But wait. Set up your frying area. Put sand or kitty litter down to absorb any oil spills. Bring out a fire extinguisher just in case. Every deep fryer comes with an injector. This is so much fun. Inject your turkey with what ever flavor you want—just make sure once again there is no water involved. Create an oil based mixture using spices—we went with cajun. Here's our turkey all ready to get fried. Note how dark it is out. We should have started earlier.

5. Also note that Matt has goggles and asbestos mitts on. Okay, now we're going to slowly, very slowly, lower the bird in the boiling hot oil (350 degrees). You don't want splattering!

6. Now you wait. Remember it should be about 5 minutes per pound. Use a quick read thermometer to check the turkey (oops it gets really greasy, I dropped mine in and it got deep fried!) Oh, and also remember that you might have to adjust the temp of the oil when you put the bird in because adding it will lower the temperature.

7. Wait for turkey to cook. Meanwhile, remember when you take it out you're going to have this big pot of oil, so you might as well do something with it. As soon as we were done I threw in a whole lot of potatoes for french fries. The whole thing was amazing and all the skeptics were won over. Deep Frying Rocks!!!!

Comments

[RyLa's Mom]

Hey! We've been deep frying our turkey for YEARS. It will be the most incredible tasting turkey you have ever eaten. Don't get scared either - it doesn't take rocket science to do it, and don't get scared either! True - any idiot could mess it up, but a responsible adult will do just fine. I put my husband in the garage with a few beers and nothing bad happens. The garage is open of course, but it's his responsibility. Just go slow when putting the turkey into the fryer. It will bubble. But - other than that, you're fine. Good luck!

[Brittany]

Interesting video! One thing I don't understand: Why would deep frying roast beef be any safer than deep-frying a turkey?

[adrienne]

Doesn't the danger make the food so much more sumptuous?

I know the threat of explosion and/or uncontrolled fire is a draw for most of the men in my life... and I've seen few young men so excited about a turkey as your son!

One of my friends swears by the Sweet Potato Queens' Danger Pudding (made by boiling an opened can of condensed milk). It's especially tasty as it's chocked full of the chef's courage.

[Trisha]

20 gallons of boiling hot oil??? That must be the biggest turkey ever! LOL

[Tara]

LOVE fried turkey! One year when my husband and I were first married, we volunteered to fry a turkey. After days and days and days of warnings and admonishments from DH's grandmother, she's the one who wound up setting herself on fire, not us. (She bent over to get something out of her oven and set her hair on fire with the gas burner on the stove). It was all ok, though, and the turkey was incredible.

[Ron]

As someone whose family makes fun of him for getting freaked out if more than 2 candles are lit at the same time, that video ... and this post ... scared the bejeesus out of me. I should be able to sleep again sometime around March.

[Sally]

We are so never every frying a turkey in our lifetime. If my husband even suggested it after watching this video I would have to seriously consider divorce...

[Steve]

In your instruaction, step # 1 has an error in it. When placing the turkey into the pot and filling it with water 2" above the bird, is correct. You want to remove the bird from the pot before marking the water line with a sharpie. Following your instrcutions will put way too much oil in the pot.

You may also want to write the weight of the bird on the pot too for future reference.

Thanks