| By Obie Obermark
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| Keep a Fire Extinguisher Close. |
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INGREDIENTS |
| 10-14 lb turkey, 3-5 gallons of peanut oil, GatorBreath, Aluminum foil.
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| DIRECTIONS |
| First, Before you even unwrap your turkey, write down its exact weight, then slide it head first into your cook pot. Fill the pot with water until your turkey is covered plus one more inch, or you reach two inches from the top of the pot. Pull out the bird and mark the pot at the depth of the remaining water. This is how much peanut oil you will need. The Giblet pack and neck will weigh a bit over a pound, so subtract 1-2 pounds from the turkey’s weight. Multiplying the corrected weight by 3.5 gives your cooking time in minutes.
Safely thaw the turkey and remove the giblet pack & neck. Stick a a sharp knife in the throat hole, & cut along the juncture of the breast halves until you hit bone. This enlarges the throat hole so oil can circulate thought it more easily and slits the membrane so it can’t trap the bubbles of steam that can make dangerous splatters. Generously coat the entire bird, plus inside the body cavity and on the breast under the skin, with GatorBreath. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or at least 6 hrs. Set up your fryer OUTSIDE in a place where some slopped oil won’t damage anything. KEEP A FIRE EXTINGUISHER CLOSE for as long as the burner is lit. If things go wrong, they will go very wrong, very fast. (I almost set fire to my house once, but a $15 fire extinguisher saved my tail.) Be ready! Run several gallons of hot tap water into an ice chest large enough to hold the turkey. When you hit your finish time, carefully remove your beauty from the oil, and stand it on its tail and legs to drain for a few minutes. Dump the hot water out of the ice chest, dry it, and close it. Wrap your turkey in aluminum foil, then close it in the ice chest for 30-45 minutes to let it coast and finish cooking. If you let the oil sit undisturbed for a day, you can salvage and re-use about 2/3 of it. Only keep the clear oil, discard anything cloudy. |
