When Turkey fryers are banned...
The turkeys have won.
Be a patriot - fry a turkey today!
Americans have been advised to head for the bunkers as Department of Homeland Security quakes before the latest threat existential threat to the union: Thanksgiving. The department, founded in the wake of the September 11 attacks, tweeted a series of warnings to worried citizens yesterday, as the danger level escalated. The …
Question for our American cousins; Why do you deep fry turkey?
I appreciate every culture has it's culinary oddities and us Brits can certainly come up with a few. Does it taste nicer or do you just enjoy the danger? Surely putting on a slow roast and popping to the pub is the way to go?
Either way, happy Thanks Giving to you.
@"Deep-frying the turkey is significantly faster and seals in the moisture"
Try tin foil around the Turkey then put it in a baking dish about 3-4 inches deep. That keeps in the moisture and cooks the Turkey better as well. :)
You just need to go back and occasionally look at it to see if you need to spoon out some of the liquid as it cooks from time to time. Leaving about 2 inches of liquid is plenty to keep it very moist and you can add a little bit of water to start the process off (say half an inch when you start cooking).
For added bonus points, just before its considered done, open up the top of the tin foil to brown off the outer surface of the Turkey, then it looks and tastes perfect. :)
Its also a lot healthier than deep frying the Turkey.
Stuff the turkey with moist stuffing, including halved limes. Cover it with rashers of streaky bacon, some butter, then wrap it in foil. Put it in a very low oven just before going to bed on Christmas Eve. Wake up on "the day" to a wonderful aroma of succulent moist perfectly-roasted turkey.
I wish I hadn't thought of that. It's hours until lunchtime...
Cheers
Until you've tried it.
There's a *reason* deep-frying is popular - We did it the hard (long) way over here until fairly recently. Deep-frying, provided you observe the proper process, produces an excellent bird every time, and in very short order. It's hard to mess up unless you're a complete bone-head. But with 300+ million of us, there are a few more bone-heads here than you'll find over in Blighty.
Actually, I don't deep-fry any longer - I've discovered smoking. While it takes longer than deep-frying, and requiresd more skill, it allows an even better bird than frying permits. And it's STILL faster than the traditional oven approach.
Are they (the presumed target audience of such communications) so stupid that they need to be advised of these things at a homeland security level? Isn't this more something for the cooking channel than defcon? I can appreiciate that people would travel with some of these items, and that the cooking side is important, but I fail to see how it's a DoHS issue to raise anything other than the bits that affect security such as the latter comments.
And americans tell us constantly we're a nation of blithering dumbo's who need to live in a nanny state and accept American superiority, go figure.
"You're supposed to fry the turkey in vegetable oil not petrol"
Considering that the first diesel did run on Veggie oil , it would not make any difference . Except for the diesel fumes in your food. What the should show is what happens when you try and fry a frozen turkey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MR-2zKnn1I
Thus in one stroke has the DHS defeated my otherwise fiendishly brilliant plan of cornering the Thanksgiving leftovers market by distributing (via checked baggage) millions of snow globes, each containing a slice of deep-fried turkey pie!!
You win this round, DHS, but we shall meet again!!!!
Stupid as it seems, you have to tell people not to do this sort of thing or they go and do it.
A dozen homes a year are lost to idiots starting up a turkey-powered rocket motor in their garage or apartment. I totally want to do a turkey this way (what red-blooded male wouldn't) but after reviewing my 70x100 ft garden concluded years ago that there simply wasn't enough blast radius allowance.
I also think all those British people mocking the deep fryer have to answer for the deep fried Mars Bar before any nasturtiums are cast.
Traditional British Chips - possibly the best ad-hoc meal ever invented in the history of the Universe - are, sadly, largely a thing of the past since the government subsidies were deep-sixed by Thatcher and her anti-chipshop agenda.
Snow Globes have long-since been "pro-hibited, Sir" on US flights. They do sell them at about four times the price in the gift shop airside. The increased price is presumably allowing for emptying, testing and refilling before sale. Yeah right.
Perhaps next time I fly I'll take a turkey or two though (Borat style), seeing as they're allowed...?
"It also advised flyers to check their bags for guns and knives, although it accepted this "sounds silly". But yes, it appears some people to forget to pack everything needed for an extended break with the family."
I can't believe that I'm the only one who spotted the last sentence. Thanks Reg, I can just about face my morning meeting now, and survive it still smiling :)
A nanny state/social engineering experiment failure.
Every year I read about people who burn down their house, because they didn't take the time to read/understand the instructions, while frying a turkey (it's actually quite good when properly done).
Other seasonal favorites are the folks who have preferred their toaster pastries a little extra crispy, so they jam the handle, and leave the damn thing unattended. And then have the gall to sue the manufacturer.
Countless quite neighborhoods rudely interrupted by the sound of police tacticle teams, responding to holiday hostage situations. Or my personal favorites that involve the people who either get arrested for assaulting, intimidating, stampeding or committing other acts of domestic terrorism, on the Friday following our "Thanks Giving".
Tomorrow, the newspapers and their websites will be all a buzz with headlines and full public dockets with reports of exloding turkeys and other feast related tragidies.
It's called Natural Selection for a reason, America!