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Journal geoswan's Journal: Deep fried turkey? Yuck! 31

Journal by geoswan
About three weeks ago I was channel browsing, and I heard something disgusting.

Some guy from Louisiana said he was going to show how to prepare a traditional, Louisiana-style, deep-fried turkey.

Deep-fried turkey? I never heard of such a thing. And I find the idea fairly revolting.

But, in the next three weeks I hear and read about this revolting idea in several places.

Up here in Canada our big, nation spanning, homegrown hardware chain is Canadian Tire. And they were heavily marketing a frier big enough to fry a turket.

I suspect a marketing conspiracy. The claim is that the deep fryer can cook a 20 pound bird in one hour.

Has anyone actually et one of these revolting things? Does anyone know anyone who put down their hard-earned cash for one of these monster deep-fryers?

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Deep fried turkey? Yuck! More

Deep fried turkey? Yuck!

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  • My dad did this _once_ some years ago. It wasn't for thanksgiving, but he did get one of the really big deep fryers and cooked a turkey. Not the best I ever tasted, but quite good. Obviously a lot more calories than traditional baking, but the meat was nice and tender and moist.

    My dad was always ready to try something new/different. He also got one of those smokers -- _that_ was the best I ever had! The thing looks like a vertical tube about 2 & 1/2 feet high. You load the thing with hardwood and
  • Until you've tried it. Deep frying cooks the turkey in about 15-20 minutes, and it comes out juicy and delicious. It is not greasy at all. The oil sears the outside of the meat so that the juices stay inside, it is actually a really, really delicious way to prepare turkey.

    The downside is that it takes a lot of oil, and you have to use a high-quality frying oil like peanut oil in order to get it hot enough to drop a cold bird in and still keep the oil at cooking temp. So, in the south, people pool their
    • According to Alton Brown, there is another trick with deep frying. Temperatures for deep frying are usually 325+. This is higher than 212. It causes steam to form in the food be cooked. The pressure of this prevents oil from permeating the food. If you don't overcook the food AND drain it after cooking, there should be very little oil in the food.

      • ...Temperatures for deep frying are usually 325+...

        So, how hot does it get to be inside a home pressure cooker?

        • Water pressure cooker, or oil pressure cooker? I wouldn't do the latter at home, because most stovetop pressure cookers are not rated/safe for oil.

          I don't know how hot the steam ones get, but if you plug it into PV=nRT, you should be able to figure it out:) I think something like 250 or so.
          • Home oil pressure cookers? I have never heard of such a thing... Thirty years ago, when I was a kid I sometimes took a streetcar that went through an ethnic neighbourhood that had a restaurant that had a sign in the window advertizing "pressure fried chicken". But, since then, I have never heard of such a thing.
            • Some people try pressure frying at home.

              You might see 'pressure fried chicken' advertised as 'broasted' chicken. Plenty of these cookers still exist. I'm not sure, but I think this is the typical method at KFC and similar places.

          • Water pressure cooker, or oil pressure cooker? I wouldn't do the latter at home, because most stovetop pressure cookers are not rated/safe for oil.

            I don't know how hot the steam ones get, but if you plug it into PV=nRT, you should be able to figure it out:) I think something like 250 or so.

            Alright, I'm a lazy bastard, so I'm not looking up actual numbers. But that's the ideal gas equation you cited there. Water vapor is decidedly non-ideal. You'd want to take out your old thermo book and check th

    • Not to mention the fire danger- about 5 households a year in Oregon burn down due to those deep fryers.

      Here's my idea on how to fix the three main problems:

      1. Oil temperature- these fryers need a thermometer on them. Cooking oil at 400F is flash point, and can turn your fryer into a flame thrower.

      2. Overflow- Some people heat up the oil then put in a turkey that is too large- thus sending 350F oil flowing down the driveway towards their house! Obviously these things need an overflow valve.

      3. Still-
      • Maybe it would be just as useful to have a "Max Fill" line and some markings for the sizes of various birds. Rice cookers don't have this overflow problem because of the instructions and the markings.

        Also, why would there be a problem if the oil runs along the driveway to the house? Other than oily items, I don't expect there to be any fire problems since the oil should cool when it reaches the house. Were you talking about oily damages, fire hazards, or something else?
        • Maybe it would be just as useful to have a "Max Fill" line and some markings for the sizes of various birds. Rice cookers don't have this overflow problem because of the instructions and the markings.

          Also good too.

          Also, why would there be a problem if the oil runs along the driveway to the house? Other than oily items, I don't expect there to be any fire problems since the oil should cool when it reaches the house. Were you talking about oily damages, fire hazards, or something else?

          Fire hazard. Oil
        • what I seem to remember was putting the bird in the fryer, filling the cold oil to the fill line, then taking the turkey out (and into a pan, obviously) before heating the oil. Then, the oil heats up to cooking temp and lower the bird in, lock the cover on and set the timer.

          Frozen birds are a definite hazard. Guy up in Winconsin (according to rural myth) dropped a frozen bird into hot oil. The bird exploded, sending hot oil and shards of cooker shrapnel everywhere. Sounds like a case for myth busters.
          • I definitely think that the myth busters should attack that 1, because it sounds so scarey and close to home. By "close to home", I mean that if it happens it could happen to the common man.

            Your cooking technique sounds good, because it ensures that no matter what, it won't overflow. My suggestion above only prevents overflows when people cook only certain things. Maybe there isn't anything to worry about. After all, if we have thought of these things, then I'm sure that they have as well. /me crosses his

          • Frozen birds are a definite hazard. Guy up in Winconsin (according to rural myth) dropped a frozen bird into hot oil. The bird exploded, sending hot oil and shards of cooker shrapnel everywhere. Sounds like a case for myth busters.

            That show is a lot more fun than I anticipated.

            I could see geysers of boiling hot oil, if frying the frozen bird released significant quantities of water, or blood, or blood-slush. But I think a shrapnel producing explosion would only happen if a sealed core cooked first,

  • Fried Turkey's not that new. I can't imagine it would be too much different from fried chicken, and the people I know who have tried it all liked it. Though, I'm still not entirely certain why you fry the thing whole. I'd think it would be easier (and faster) to cut it up first.

    • Though, I'm still not entirely certain why you fry the thing whole.

      Because you can, of course.

      (Assuming your fryer is that big.)

      Though personally I'm really not much of a fan of turkey in general. I eat it more for tradition's sake, but I'm not wild about it. (Get it? Wild? Turkey? Ha. Ha. Ha.) Anyway.

      Give me BEEF any day. What I love is BEEF. Slab-wise.

      Meanwhile, pig's a filthy animal.

      Cheers,

      Ethelred

      • Meanwhile, pig's a filthy animal.

        You're just trying to get a Deutsch smackdown, aren't you? I thought that was the official meat of Germania. Or is it now the more generic 'hack up bits and shove it in a casing'?
        • You're just trying to get a Deutsch smackdown, aren't you? I thought that was the official meat of Germania.

          Yup, you got it. Oh, the irony of me choosing to live here...

          Beef isn't really their "thing", either. Neither is chicken. Yet those are my two fave kinds of meat. Seafood also isn't big here (aside from a few kinds of fish and calamares, which I don't care for), yet I love clams and shrimp especially, neither of which is very popular here.

          Or is it now the more generic 'hack up bits and shove it

      • Give me BEEF any day. What I love is BEEF. Slab-wise.

        My favourite Christmas dishes? I like a nice leg of lamb. And I like a Caribean dish my mom used to make. "Feshjuada", I don't know how it was spelled. It is like a kind of black bean chili.

        Now, maybe I am contradicting myself, because I don't like the idea of a greasy turkey, but I find they either butcher lamb differently, or they run the baby-fat off them. But I liked the greasier legs of lamb we used to get. I think, more than other meats

    • Why cut it up? Remember that oil will be inside the body cavity, so cutting it up results in VERY little extra surface area exposed to the oil.

      It's actually fairly different from fried chicken, as a fried turkey isn't breaded.
  • um... yea, Maybe I'll read the comments later.
    I'm somewhat skeptical about a turkey being thoroughly cooked in an hour let alone 20-30 minutes.... salmonella and all that.

    But who knows.

    OTOH, I have no interest in deep fried twinkies or oreos and such.

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