turkey frying

Chris Knight's avatar

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? ...

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The twenty-pound turkey (what the heck was Dad thinking?!?) that will be our own family’s main course tomorrow. Since this is the biggest bird of the batch, I used this one to do the “water trick” with to measure out how much peanut oil to pour into the pot tomorrow morning. That means you put the turkey in, and start pouring cold water into the pot until it meets the top of the turkey. Then take it out and make a mark (I use a piece of tape) at the water line minus the displacement. That way you don’t have to rough guess and risk flames and destruction when peanut oil comes flowing over the top of the pot…

So all the birds are now marinaded and well-rubbed in with Cajun seasoning. There’ll be several more treatments throughout the day but for now “the chef” is going to take a ...

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Right now: catching up on e-mail and news.

Later: writing more of the novel that I’ve been working on for National Novel Writing Month, which as things stand now won’t be finished by the end of November because of all the good stuff that I’m finding to add into it. But what will be done by then should still be enough to meet the 150-pages needed to qualify as “done” for the month. I’ll just put the finishing touches on it later 🙂

Later still: painting some more of my army of Orks for Warhammer 40,000 and then laying out all my works for turkey frying on Thursday.

And done already this morning: videography of the baptisms of a friend’s children at a church in Greensboro. I’d never done a baptismal job before.

Maybe someday I’ll get to film a bris. But please… no tipping! 😛...

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Lots of this blog’s readers are well aware of my obsession with/addiction to deep-fried turkey. I first heard about it nine years ago this month and then spent two more years studying the technique and getting brave enough to attempt it. With that first succulent bite in 2002, I knew that Thanksgiving would never be the same for me again. I’ll never go back to basted turkey if I can help it. For me, a bird as magnificent as a turkey deserves better. Deep-frying it is the only way to honor what no less an authority than Benjamin Franklin once decreed should be our national fowl.

This is not mere “cooking” to me. This is an art! One that demands meticulous care and attention and passion. That this is also considered the second most dangerous form of preparing food known to man (after cleaning fugu) is even more ...

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See the photo on the right? That’s me a few years ago on Thanksgiving, holding a golden brown, succulent deep-fried turkey. It’s considered the second most dangerous form of cooking known to man (after preparing fugu) and I’ve done it plenty of times since 2002. And especially for family and friends, who have always enjoyed the exceptionally juicy meat that comes from preparing the bird this way. It’s a taste that I’ve become rather addicted to. And I was looking forward to doing up one or two or even more next week…

But this will be one Thanksgiving that I’m gonna have to do without my beloved fried turkey. So is everyone else who does this that I’ve spoken to. I wouldn’t mind paying for it but the people around me keep telling me to “save your money”.

The reason: the price of peanut oil has gone through the roof....

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I awoke at dawn, had breakfast but didn’t bother to shower. When you know that you’ll be working with searing-hot oil and will get blasted with steam rich in the aroma of garlic butter, getting cleaned-up for Thanksgiving dinner is kind of a moot thing.

Deep-frying a turkey is the only form of cooking that I know of that demands wearing extra layers of clothing and such demanding attention to detail. It’s like being a combination firefighter, M*A*S*H surgeon and gourmet chef. This is masculine cooking to the max. In fact, I’ve only seen one woman deep-fry a turkey: the indomitable Paula Dean. But then, Paula Dean can do anything in the kitchen. That she is the only woman I have witnessed frying a turkey makes her all the more magnificent. Behold her awesome culinary skills and tremble, mere mortals!

Anyhoo, we had breakfast – just a little ...

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So it’s now early Thanksgiving morning and in case anyone is wondering: yes, this year I am deep-frying a turkey! It’ll be the first I’ve done in two years. I didn’t fry one for Thanksgiving last year because I had to work all day at the TV station. Here’s a pic of the 2005 Thanksgiving fried turkey and the one I did the previous Christmas and Thanksgiving 2004. You’ve no idea how much I missed doing one and how much I’ve been looking forward to this Thanksgiving. I started prepping the bird yesterday and just gave it a checkup and even pre-cooked, it smells delightful!

It must be borne in mind however that deep-frying (or Cajun-frying) a turkey is an EXTREMELY dangerous procedure! Every year, there are dozens (hundreds?) of accidents involving turkey frying that result in damaged homes, some even thoroughly destroyed and worse: severe injury including ...

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While going through some older videotapes I found this, made during the first Christmas that Lisa and I were married. This was at her parents’ place in Calhoun, Georgia and is a chronicle of the third turkey that I’d ever fried. Since then I’ve done many more (and have become much better at it, I think). Lisa was running the camera and the guy you see sitting in the chair with the University of Georgia cap is her dad:

I might make another video about turkey-frying as we get closer to Thanksgiving, this one doing a step-by-step from marinading the bird, to actually frying it. But this one gives a pretty good idea about the process and the extreme danger involved 🙂

EDIT 11-18-2007 10:25 a.m. EST: I’ve decided to stop publicly showing this video, because I’m taking a lot of heat for how “burnt” the turkey looks. And in ...

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