Roasting vs Deep Frying

After brining my birds overnight (see Brining the Turkey), I washed off the brine and let them air dry in my fridge. Thanksgiving morning we roasted one bird and deep-fried the other. As I have never deep-fried a turkey I read many different perspectives on the topic online, arriving at my own method of cooking. Luckily, one of our guests had cooked a turkey this way many times and knew what to expect in case things went awol.

Early in the morning I thoroughly dried off the bird destined for the deep-fryer hoping to wick off as much water as possible. To test out the fryer, I loaded it with oil and turned it on high. I fried a batch of sweet potato fries to go with a paprika aoili and felt comfortable with my control of the temperature (only after burning the crap out of the first two batches).

It was then I stumbled across a truly exceptional tip online. Put your turkey in the deep-fryer when it is empty. Fill the fryer with water so you can see how much oil you need. Pull out the turkey and look at the water line. That is how much oil you need. Oops. Instead we bailed lava hot oil out of the fryer and into a pot...and eye-balled it.

Deep Fried Turkey

When it was fryin' time, Dave put on some thick rubber gloves, grabbed the12 pound turkey by its legs and centimeter by centimeter lowered that fowl into the oil. We were extremely careful to go slow enough that the water left in the bird didn't cause an eruption in the oil, which leads to bubbling over and all kinds of nastiness. We also took care not to deep fry in the garage, which apparently is a leading cause in fires over Thanksgiving.

Roasted Turkey

That said after about 40 minutes in 325 degree oil, we ended up with a very dark brown beautiful turkey. Side by side both birds were lovely, but in a blind taste test, the roasted bird was our favorite.

One site I referenced, should you decide to try your hand at frying next year.

Brining the Turkey

The week of Thanksgiving, Tuesday night is brining night. Tonight I picked up my birds from Whole Foods...yes, I said birds...and brought them home to soak in the simple tangyness of a salt/sugar/spice/water blend. I picked up two birds this year so I could try my hand at deep frying a turkey, something I have always wanted to do. And on the off chance it blows up...I will have my backup turkey in the oven slowly roasting.

I am sitting in my kitchen staring at my freshly made gallon and a half of homemade chicken stock and smiling at the thought of my two little birds marinating away. Generally, a brine is used to help pull extra moisture out of meat and replace it with salt through osmosis. For a better description than I can hope to give, I refer you to the expert in all things food science, Harold McGee.So as not to confuse you, I should point out that this year, McGee is decidedly anti-brine. Whatever.

For a two gallon brine, here is what I did:

1. In a saucepan, dissolve 2 cups of salt in 2 quarts of water. Add 1 cup of brown sugar and most of the hard round spices you have such as peppercorns, juniper berries, cloves, etc. I threw in some poultry seasoning and bay leaves this year. And in one batch I added cidar instead of brown sugar.
   
   
2. After the mixture is dissolved, pour into a container (I use a hunter orange Home Depot bucket when the weather is cold enough to store the turkey in the garage over night) and add ice and cold water until you have two gallons cold brine water.
   
   
3. Rinse off turkey (always rinse meat before you use it as bacteria grows on the outside) and submerge in container. I use the vegetable drawer in my fridge when the weather is warm...as you can see in pics.

Before making my brine tonight I surfed in the internet for new ideas. I didn't find any that I liked, but I did stumble across someone's technique for making sure you have enough salt in your water. They claim that you can tell you brine is salty enough if a raw egg (still in shell) floats in the water.

I tried this in extremely salty water and my egg fell right to the bottom. For my second batch of brine, I tried floating the egg before diluting the water all the way and it still didn't float. I was really hoping to have fun little trick to share with you...but alas, I don't. Unless you wanted to know a trick that doesn't work.

My chickens aren't fully submerged in my fridge drawers as that much water weight would surely do damage, so I will flip the birds occasionally Tomorrow night I rinse them off and leave them in the empty bins to air dry a bit...further evaporating more water and condensing that salt.

For more tips on my turkey roasting and deep frying...check back with me.