How'd them fried turkeys come out? Behold the pics and video!

Last year it was the outrageously jacked-up price of peanut oil that kept fried turkey from being economically feasible.  This year I thought the price had gone down when I went to buy it, but turns out I was using cottonseed oil instead!  Which turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  I'd been wanting to try cottonseed oil for awhile now but couldn't find it anywhere.  Same great taste when all was done though!

Here's the first bird that I did (for a customer), after about 30 hours of marinading and rubbing-in seasoning, as it awaits the 350 degree Fahrenheit hot oil...

Yours Truly carefully lowering the turkey in...

Frying at 3 and a half minutes per pound, this 9-pounder took 35 minutes to cook...

A little over half an hour later (a heckuva lot shorter time than basting it in an oven) this turkey is done!

Beautiful, ain't it? :-)

Now this next one is the turkey that I fried for my own family's Thanksgiving dinner. And lemme tell ya: I've never done one this big before. It weighed in at more than TWENTY AND A HALF POUNDS! I nicknamed it "The Beast", it was so monstrously large. Think the previous biggest one was about 13 pounds and I darn nearly had cardiac infarction when Dad told me how big a bird he had purchased. But, I'm always up for a challenge.

Here's "The Beast" before frying...

A turkey this big deserves something better than just still pics, don't ya think? So how about a video clip of me lowering it into the oil...

"The Beast" took 75 minutes to thoroughly fry...

And an hour and fifteen minutes later...

That is going to be my personal standard by which all future fried turkeys will be judged. If all the rest to come can be as big and juicy and delicious as The Beast, I will be happy :-)