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Meat Dishes Ricky LeBlanc
Best Ever Fried Turkey

Prep Time Required: No time specified.
Cooking Time Required: No time specified.

Ingredients
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder 2 Tbsp Cajun seasoning
1 turkey about 12 lbs. 15 oz can chicken broth

Directions

GETTING STARTED: Never fry turkeys inside your home or near combustible materials. You will need a portable gas burner with propane tank and a deep pot with a basket or frying plate with post. Locate your burner and equipment a safe distance from your home in a roomy location - in case you have to jump away from burning oil! Set up burner and use your burner according to manufacturers directions. To check to see how much oil you will need, place your turkey in the pot and add water in measured quantities to the pot until the water level is 2 inches above the turkey and you still have at least a few inches to the rim of the pot, the more room the better. Take the turkey out of the pot and measure the water left in it if you forgot to measure before you poured it in the pot. Make a mark or scratch on the inside of the pot to mark the oil level for future use. If you intend to fry more than one bird you will need to add extra oil at the beginning being careful to maintain enough space between the oil level and rim of the pot to compensate for splashing. Dry the pot thoroughly inside and out. To make the outside of your turkey pot easier to clean after your frying adventure rub a coating of dish liquid all over the outside of the pot before filling it with oil and putting it on the burner. The soap smells terrible while it is burning but that charred soapy coating will save you a lot of hard scrubbing during cleanup. Fill your pot with oil to the level previously determined for your turkey and light the burner according to manufacturer directions. Many folks use peanut oil for frying but since we only fry turkeys for one day and then dispose of the used oil we find that clear frying oil works just fine and is quite a bit cheaper. You want the oil to be at 350 degrees when you put the turkey in and to stay around that temperature during the frying process - you may have to regulate the fire up or down to achieve this. Invest in a thermometer you can use with your setup for best results.

PREPARING THE BIRD: You will need an injector that will hold 1 fluid oz. or 30 ml with a large needle - this size injector is easy to handle for most folks. While your oil is heating up assemble your injector using a little cooking oil on the rubber end of the plunger for smoother operation. Wash your turkey inside and out removing the giblets and any loose skin around the neck and tail ends. Mix the chicken broth, Cajun seasonig and garlic powder in a tall glass and stir between injector fills. You should inject the breast area with at least 2 injectorfuls. With the turkey on its back insert the injector in the front area of the breast and sqeeze out some of the mixture then without taking the injector all the way out of the bird reposition it in another area not too far from the first and squeeze out some more of the mixture. Repeat until all mixture in injector is used. Refill the injector and this time insert the injector near the rear area of the breast and repeat as before. Next do an injectorful in each thigh the same way, one in each drumstick, one in each large section of the wings. If you still have some mixture left some more in the breast is good and in the thighs also. Use up all the mixture. You will need to work quickly because the red pepper in the Cajun seasoning begins to swell in the broth and could clog your injector needle - keeping the mixture stirred up seems to lessen this potential problem. The next step is to dry the turkey as best as possible inside and out to lessen the popping as it is lowered into the hot oil. Wrapping the turkey in a large bath towel works very well.

COOKING THE BIRD: You may want to rig up a pulley system to lower your turkey with if you are doing this job alone or just for safety. A long closet pole is better than a broom or mop handle if that is the route you are taking. Make sure you have an able bodied helper if using a pole. Do not attempt this method alone. It helps if you lower the bird into the oil neck end first and lower it slowly to keep the oil from splashing out of the pot. After it is successfully in the oil time the bird 3 minutes for every pound. It will be 36 minutes for a 12 pound turkey, more for a larger bird, less for a smaller one. Try to keep your oil close to 350 degrees, if it drops significantly and stays low a good while then you may want to increase your cooking time to compensate. Your turkey will be about ready to come out when the ends of the drumsticks start sticking up out of the oil. When it is done carefully lift the turkey from the oil letting it drip a little before moving it to your work area. Sliding a pizza pan under the turkey and basket or post works very well for catching drips as you move the bird to your work area. Carefully remove it from the cooking gear - it will be very hot. Carve and serve it immediately or wrap it in a couple of layers of aluminum foil and put it in an ice chest lined with newspaper for later service. Never leave a pot with a lit burner unattended and try to secure the area against children until the oil cools. If you are frying more than one turkey you will need to add a little more oil to the pot before heating oil. If you need to add oil after frying a bird let the pot of oil come back up to 350 degrees before putting in the next bird. You should figure one hour for every bird you will fry. Bon chance mon ami!

1 fried turkey


Goes Well With

Beet Salad

Cajun Style Potato Salad

Eggplant Dressing

Maque Chou 'Mock Shoo'

Sweet Peas

Sweet Potato Casserole

Cajun Pickles

Popa Dunc's Fruit Salad

Mom's Christmas Eve Eggnog

Pickled Eggs

Pickled Okra

Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers

Stuffed Mushrooms

Tex-Mex Cranberry Salsa

Chez Paul's Dirty Rice Jambalaya

Dried Beans Cajun Style

White Beans

Rick's Cajun Hush Puppies
Copyright 2004 - IT 350 project by Lloyd Brown, Robert LeBlanc and Stephen Sagers