Monday, December 27, 2010

Deep Fried Turkey

The absolute best way to have turkey is deep fried!  I have roasted, barbecued, smoked and rotisserie cooked turkey with great success but the deep fried will always, in my opinion, be the best.  To the excitement of all my loving family, I served a deep fried turkey for Christmas dinner and paired the delightful fowl with some great side dishes.  Garlic red skin mashed potatoes, asparagus sauteed in butter and balsamic vinegar, glazed carrots slow cooked in chicken stock, homemade cranberry sauce topped with blueberries, a brazed artichoke heart salad with roasted pine nuts, grated Parmesan and a pesto vinaigrette and to-die-for fresh homemade braided French bread.  Everything was fresh and from scratch and incredible. Do yourself a favor, the next time you have a big dinner to cook take the time to work from scratch, it will pay off.  If I thought that this blog wasn't going to be way too long for anyone to take the time to read I would describe everything in great detail and put all my recipes up, but I will stick to the main attraction of the dinner-the amazing turkey!  Some people say that you should either brine or inject your bird. I say, why not both?  I brined my turkey for 32ish hours, turning the bird once about half way through.  My brine recipe goes like this:

4 cups water 
1 1/2 cups kosher salt
2 tbs black pepper corn
1 tbs fennel seed
2 tbs crushed bay leaf
2 tbs whole coriander seed
2 c Chardonnay 
2 tbs minced garlic 
2 tbs thyme 
1 tbs caraway seed
1 tbs savory
Pour all ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil stirring often.  Almost all the ingredients are dry so make sure that you remove from heat as soon as the brine mix comes to a boil.  We want to activate the dry seasonings not cook them down. We also want to make sure that all the salt has dissolved.  Let the mix cool down to room temperature.  Place your thawed cleaned turkey into the container of your choice, breast side down, and pour in brine then fill with ice water till turkey is completely submerged.
For my injection:
1/2 c Sauvignon Blanc
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 tbs minced fresh sage
2 tbs minced garlic
Simmer all ingredient together on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes to release all the full aromas and flavors of the sage then inject the turkey as much as possible.

Remove the turkey from the brine and place it in a clean sink for a couple hours (about 4 or so) before you fry your turkey to allow it to get to room temperature and to allow the bird to dry as much as possible.  Please never be dumb enough to drop a wet frozen turkey into a hot pot of oil. It can kill you! I suggest using peanut oil for frying and so do all the experts.  I always followed the rules of frying that stated 350-375 degrees, but when you drop your bird into the oil the temperature drops about 100 degrees. When that happens you have to crank up the heat and spend the 45 minutes that it takes to cook the turkey just to bring the oil back up to cooking temperature.  I did a little research and found some experts who tempt danger by bringing the temperature up to about 450- 475 degrees so when they drop in the turkey the oil drops down to just the right cooking temperature.  * Disclaimer- 440 degrees is about smoke point of peanut oil which is the most dangerous the oil can be so I, nor anybody, would never ever recommend that you try this at home.  I do have to say that when I tried this technique it worked beautifully, and now that I have mastered the technique I will be using it every time.  The turkey came out so amazing, the skin was crispy and full of flavor it was had to not eat it all before I was finished carving the turkey.  The white meat was so moist everyone choose the white meat over the dark meat.  It's pretty amazing when the white meat is actually more juice than dark meat.  There was a wonderful buttery flavor to meat and every couple of bites you would get a burst of sage and garlic.  This turkey was awe inspiring, I wish I had some left overs.  Needless to say my turkey this year turned better then any turkey I have ever cooked in the past.  Be adventurous, deep fry a turkey.  

2 comments:

  1. Looks delicious! I like that you did a "few" dishes well rather than a "bunch" of dishes so-so. How long do you leave the turkey in the brine? I've heard a couple of hours, I've heard overnight, what do you think? I HATE cooked carrots no matter what, but I'll try anything cranberry! Good job Mike!

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  2. Thank you Amy. I brined my turkey for about 36 hours, you want to do it for at least 24 hours. You will know when it's enough time when the meat of the turkey is almost the same color as the brine.

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