What are everybody's plans for Thanksgiving this year?  Me, I'll be heading over to my parents' place as usual..... but this time, we're putting a spin on things with the bird.  That is, we're gonna deep-fry that sucker:

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/school/cst … urkey.html
http://www.eatturkey.com/consumer/cookinfo/fryturk.html

It's something I've been wanting to try for the longest, but was scared due to some of the horror stories associated with it; potential scaldings, houses burning down, lawns set aflame..... they didn't take to the idea very well, and found little consolation to my reasoning that "the house is insured." 

But how could I not try this?  Deep-fried turkey is damned tasty, and so much quicker than conventional roasting.  I finally convinced them to try it, and I picked up this King Kooker kit today, which came highly recommended.  Precautions and common sense should assure that things go okay, but all the same, I'm wondering if I should've gone ahead and paid a bit more for one of the supposedly safer electric fryers?

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out...
Personally I don't eat fried food, but I'm sure it's tasty for those who enjoy the fried stuff No big plans for Thanksgiving, I suppose I need to review my ODEs... oh it's pretty sad, but with finals coming up you have to know you're Legendre Polynomials!

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LegendrePolynomial.html

cheers,

-avatar!

I'm not really a big turkey fan (give me ham - drool!) but I wonder if I'd like turkey more if it was prepared in such a manner.

As for plans my sister and her boyfriend are coming in from Harrisburg, the day after my sister and mother are going shopping and I'll go out with her boyfriend to do something - he's pretty cool. He's my age so he grew up surrounded by the same things I did. Seriously, it's so nice to be able to refer to something like a game and have him know what I'm refering to unlike her previous BF's.

I haven't tried it and probably won't since I've gone vegetarian. Gimmie some deep-fried jalapenos anyday.

This is Off topic, but,
I went to the Los Angeles (California) County Fair a while back.

We had a deep fried Snickers bar and deep fried avocados and tomatoes.

The avocados were not as good as I thought they would be.  Maybe because avocados actually don't taste like anything to begin with.

the Snickers bar was tasty though.

There was a page about stuff like this.
I don't have in front of me right now but
I think on that list was "deep fried cheesecake".

I can see deep-fried turkey (as unhealthy as it would probably be, not that Thanksgiving dinner is known for its weight-loss reputation), but deep-fried Snickers bars?

*retch*

Man, you crazy Americans deep-fry EVERYTHING don't ya?

You've even fried Coke for Christ's sake!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_Coke

^^ I read about that, its got to be the most retarted idea, ever!

My family is Indian, so yea, that'll give you an idea about Thanksgiving dinner

I'm the same way. I'll eat turkey, but prefer ham or chicken. I'll admit that those pictures of the deep-fried turkey look really tempting, though.

My family isn't too big on Thanksgiving traditions in general, as we never really celebrated it before we moved to the US. We'll have a meal together, but I don't think I've ever even done the wishbone thing.

Will you be having tofurkey, then? I'm not a vegetarian, but I do love tofu, so I'm curious what they taste like.

We did that a couple of times when I lived with my parents. I squirted jalapeno puree into my eye while trying to inject it into the turkey. Good times.

Other than that, it turned out pretty good.

Let's just say that I'll be working again and leave it as that.

As for deep-fried turkey, my b/f's friends did that to their turkey last year. All he said was that it tasted "pretty good," heh. I must say I was rather intrigued by the method after I went to a store and saw a cooking set SPECIFICALLY for deep-frying a turkey. That...rather scares me. ^_~

Let us know how it goes. ^_~

I dunno... the thought of deep fried chocolate makes me think of deep fried Mars Bars - something that I've always thought I'd have to try if I go to the UK (which is the only place I've ever heard of those existing).

Yeah, I saw deep-fried Mars bar for sale in Scotland but didn't have the balls to try it. Sounds disgusting.

Small family dinner.  So small that we're just getting a breast of turkey instead of a whole turkey because we can't eat that much.

Nope. I come from an Italian family, so even though there will be turkey and gravy at the table on Thanksgiving, there will also be plenty of pasta and raviolis, too.

<In best Kazakhstan accent>  GREAT SUCCESS!

Dinner went off without a hitch.  Actually, there was a very last minute change, where I decided to try the electric fryer instead; good thing, too, because it was rainy and windy as hell during the latter half of the day over here.  We were able to do everything entirely indoors. 

This switched up the plans a bit.  Instead of a twenty pounder like we usually get (which is the right size for the amount of people we have over), we went with two smaller birds, one eleven, and another twelve.  This is because the Masterbuilt Fryer can only go up to fourteen pounds, so we figured we would get two to cover basis.

It was so much easier than I imagined.  Fill the cooker container exactly to the measure line (which was about two and three-quarter gallons of peanut oil), set the timer to heat up to 400 degrees, wait 55 minutes, place the bird into the bucket, lower, and cover.  The estimation of three minutes per pound was astonishingly accurate, and the inner temperature of the cooked turkey was EXACTLY at 180 degrees.  We had the second bird cooking in no time, and the whole thing took a little less than three hours. 

And they turned out wonderfully.  Even Mom and Grandma were amazed at how something that cooks so quickly could come out so successfully.  I made believers out of everyone, and I reckon I'll be handling turkey duty from here on out. ;)  The only part I dreaded was the clean-up.  Having to drain that oil for storage (we may do another bird come Christmas time) and cleaning up the container pots -- but even those proved to be an easy affair.  The drain valve made removing the oil a cinch, and as burnt-looking as the containers looked in the end, the stainless steel material made washing them off an absolute breeze.

This is about as close as I may ever sound to an infomercial, but this product impressed the hell out of me, through and through.  It gets my full endorsement for sure.