For Your Thanksgiving Entertainment
Gizmodo has The 7 Best Deep-Fried Turkey Disaster Videos.
As a point of information, the gas in the canister that is heating the oil, like all bottled gas, is heavier than air and goes down, not up like natural gas. That means that when the line ruptures after the initial explosion, you can expect the tank to become a flamethrower before it explodes.
Since the end of the shuttle program, NASA has launch pads available for lease at Cape Canaveral, so if you really insist on deep-frying a turkey, you might consider renting space where the necessary emergency equipment is readily available.
4 comments
Perhaps I’m not qualified to judge, but IMHO, frying a turkey is like gilding a lily… too much of a “good” thing.
The people who do it claim it is a moister bird. The reality is that you can achieve the same results in your oven by basting the bird while it cooks. It is an expensive and dangerous way to avoid basting a turkey every half hour or so. It robs you of the base for your gravy, and requires you to find another way of cooking your stuffing.
Half of the enjoyment of cooking at home is smelling the food as it becomes dinner and dessert. I know what hot peanut oil smells like, and that is all you get from deep-frying. I brush on olive oil with sage, rosemary, and thyme, to start, and then use a baster to re-coat with the bird’s own juices. None of requires block and tackle, stainless steel wire, or a BC class fire extinguisher. In addition you are screwed if it rains.
There’s other reasons to deep fry turkey, especially if you inject it with Cajun spices. The fact that the outside of the turkey immediately sears when it hits the super-hot oil means that the spices get locked into the turkey rather than running out and collecting at the bottom of the pan. The result is a spicy turkey that is far more edible than the usual bland white bread holiday turkey that millions abuse their palates with on every Thanksgiving.
That said, the vast majority of the people who try their hand at deep frying a turkey have no business doing so. Their end result is no better tasting than a baked turkey, and doing so safely requires more brains than the typical American will ever possess in our wildest hopes and dreams.
– Badtux the Culinary Penguin
All of the screwing around people do is to add flavor to white meat, which has no flavor of its own. I only cook turkey thighs because they are tasty and only take about an hour to cook. In addition, so many people want white meat, that turkey legs and thighs are cheap.
You have to cover white meat with gravy to make it edible.
If you want a Cajun deep-fried turkey, there is a local restaurant that will sell you one without the dire department getting involved.