Here’s a recipe for disaster: several gallons of flammable
liquid and an open flame. These are the two main elements involved
in deep-fried turkey, which explains the inherent appeal to chefs
of the male persuasion. But if you don’t want to lay waste to
everything within a five-mile radius of your back porch, you’d do
well to follow the advice of champion turkey caller (and pretty
good deep-fried turkey cooker) Al Prante.
Prante of Vaughn is president of the Narrows Strutbusters
Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation. His freezer is
amply stocked with wild turkeys, and when Thanksgiving rolls
around, his wife Cheryl gets a break from cooking the bird.
One advantage of deep-frying a turkey is that it’s fast, Al
said. He can cook an 18-pound bird in an hour. Another advantage is
taste. Al injects the raw bird with marinade, and the cooking
process infuses the meat with flavor.
The other great thing about deep-frying turkey is that it’s
incredibly dangerous. One can experience not only the thrill of the
hunt, but the challenge of trying not to burn down the house. Al,
thrill-seeker though he may be, takes a number of precautions when
preparing his bird for consumption.
First of all, forget the back porch. Al sets up his deep fryer
in the driveway, well away from the garage with a “spatter
pan” underneath.
Second, he makes sure the turkey is thoroughly thawed. “People
who put a frozen bird in that pot are just asking for an
explosion.” (Don’t mention you heard it on the Kitsap Sun.)
Don’t try to do a turkey larger than 20 pounds in a deep fryer,
Al advises. Better to cook two 15-pounders than get in over your
head with a 30-pounder.
Third, Al carefully measures the amount of oil that will
actually be needed to avoid spillovers. Planning ahead, what a
novel idea. He puts the turkey in the empty pot then fills the pot
with water enough to cover the bird. He removes the bird and
measures the height of the water from the top of the pot down. He
subtracts another 1/2 inch to account for expansion of the oil
during heating, and marks the level to which he should fill the pot
with oil. For an 18-pound bird, he uses about 4 gallons of oil.
(Some recipes recommend peanut oil, but Al uses corn oil from
Costco because it is cheaper, and he can’t tell the difference.) Al
than dries the inside of the pot and the bird (inside and out)
because oil and water don’t mix.
He lights the propane flame and heats the oil to 350 degrees.
Meanwhile he has injected the turkey with marinade. His preferred
brand is King Cooker, available at most sporting goods stores. It
comes in a number of different flavors. Al’s favorite is garlic
butter and herb, with cajun spice a close second. He has tried,
with good success, injecting each half of the bird with a different
flavor. Like a doctor giving a novocaine shot, Al pokes around to
infuse a wider area of flesh with the liquid.
When the oil is ready, Al puts on his protection, an apron and
good quality rubber gloves that go up to his elbows. He grabs the
bird by the legs and ever so slowly lowers it into the oil, as it
hisses and spatters like an angry cat. How slow should you go? Al
takes two to three minutes to ease the turkey into its bath, often
stopping for a few seconds at a time.
Allow 3 1/2 minutes per pound.
Enjoy.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Chris Henry, South Kitsap reporter
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