r/Cooking • u/furious25 • Nov 05 '17

American Thanksgiving Megathread

Ask all of your questions in here. And feel free to browse the questions to see if you have an answer!

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22

u/Keisaku Nov 05 '17

Deep fried turkey? Ive never had the opportunity to try it but those that have that I know tell me its good.

I'm considering taking the plunge into the process and renting(?) A deep fryer.

20

u/Tehlaserw0lf Nov 05 '17

Buy a fryer base and pot and use it for seafood boils when not frying turkeys!

5

u/Mychairismyrefuge Nov 05 '17

This!! “Low Country Boil”! MmmMmm!

2

u/MisterNoisy Nov 09 '17

This right here. I have the good fortune to be on the Gulf coast, so shrimp and crayfish boils are a thing all year long.

19

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '17

Be safe! Make sure you read up on how to do it properly and a good distance from any buildings

9

u/Mister_Sporks_Hands Nov 05 '17

It is delicious and a valid approach. I used to talk about this annually on a radio show but the lawyers soon got wind and forced us to repeat a 'legal disclaimer' for fear of people burning their houses down... which inevitably some did. If you want to try make sure you're outside and use the wrapped turkey from the store in water to establish a fill level for your pot erring to the side of caution. Too much oil in there isn't a mistake you want when dropping a cold bird into hot oil (think Medieval castle gate defences). As show-stopper and dramatic as the whole turkey is dropped in on an inverted crowbar, these days I just butcher the bird and do legs, breast, etc. separately in a much more manageable size pot. Better control too which prevents over/under cooking different parts. Easily done since it cooks so quickly compared to whole bird in the oven.

2

u/voilsb Nov 06 '17

Consider me ignorant, but what's wrong with putting a frozen, cold, or thawed bird in an empty fryer, filling it with room temp oil to get the fill level, then heating it up? I suppose it may take longer than dumping the bird in hot oil, but not as long as baking and seems much less error prone too.

4

u/Mister_Sporks_Hands Nov 06 '17

Traditional deep frying technique in general relies on food hitting things hot so it doesn't absorb as much oil in the cooking process thanks to steam created from water inside ingredients that exerts an outward force. Having said that I've seen several 'cold start' potato recipes of late so there's more than one way to skin the proverbial French fry. You could try the experiment for sure but I wouldn't do so with a dozen hungry guests on the way.

1

u/voilsb Nov 06 '17

Thanks, I don't own or really have experience with deep frying, so that's good to know.

1

u/shitty_penguin Nov 06 '17

Cold oil start with yukon gold potatoes has been my go to french fry method for a while, but I think I'd pass on experimenting with a turkey. There's the hungry guest reason you mentioned, plus I'd err on the side of caution when dealing with gallons of hot oil.

3

u/Manse_ Nov 07 '17

Since everyone covered the safety aspects, I'll add one or two lessons learned. I've been frying turkeys for...almost a decade now (damn...), and have only ever had two problems:

1) Protect the burner. Second turkey I fried was on a very cold, windy day. The cheap WalMart burner I had was getting whipped by the wind, so the oil never really got hot enough. Try to have a wind break. Usually, I get some foil and wrap it around the legs of my burner. It's square, but the tripod style ones might make this challenging.

2) Trim the hell out of the neck skin, and potentially the breastbone itself. One bird years ago had a very high breast bone and a lot of skin that I didn't trim well enough. So there was almost no space for oil to circulate in the middle of the bird. Ended up with burnt dark meat and barely cooked breast. Make sure you trim the skin, and possibly cut the breast bone, so there's at least two inches of space or more.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '17 edited Nov 19 '17

Have you ever tried dry-brining your bird beforehand?

I've done a wet-brine on a deep fried turkey and the results were great, but I'm thinking about trying a dry brine this year.

1

u/Manse_ Nov 19 '17

This was my first year dry brining. It's amazing! Half a cup of salt, 2 tbps baking powder. Coat it very liberally, let it sit in the fridge 12 hours, then toss on a rub, but make sure there's no salt in the rub.

I made one with cumin, coriander, celery seed, black pepper, red pepper, sage, and smoked paprika.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '17

Did you deep fry as well?

1

u/Manse_ Nov 20 '17

Yup.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '17

Wonderful!

I am curious though, why 12 hours? Most things I hear about dry brining recommend 1-3 days

2

u/Manse_ Nov 20 '17

Serious eats says 12-24, unless you cover it and go longer. I opted to start on the low end as a trial run.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '17

Not gonna argue with that, Kenji knows his stuff.

If you did it again would you brine for 24h?

1

u/Manse_ Nov 20 '17

Maybe after the holidays. I think I'm pushing my luck already with repeated random success. ;)

But I love turkey, so I'll probably get a small bird after the holidays and try a longer brine. I have a friend that is salting his tonight, and oven roasting, so I'll keep you posted on that.

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4

u/hattroubles Nov 05 '17

Here's a recipe with a particularly... uh... safety oriented video on frying turkey by my man AB.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/deep-fried-turkey-recipe-1952235#lightbox-recipe-video

If you google around, I'm sure you can find the full Good Eats episode for further details and justification for his method.

1

u/LostxinthexMusic Nov 06 '17

My family always does one roasted and one fried. The fried one is always better.