FEATURE

This Christmas we say: Deep fry a whole turkey. Before you accuse us of endanger
ing life and limb let us assure you that we would never recommend something we h
avent tried ourselves. And the results are pretty amazing and tasty!
Now no one can really pin-point who was the first dude crazy enough to dunk a wh
ole gobbler into a pot of boiling oil. Its thought to be cajun, might have starte
d somewhere in Louisiana. There were quite a number of restaurants there that be
came famous for deep-frying a turkey. How they do it there is by injecting creol
e-style marinade into their birds and then dropping it into hot peanut or vegeta
ble oil. We will of course do it the Malaysian way.
So lets get to it shall we?
The gear:
A 40-liter pot (can get this at any cooking supplies store, got ours at Kota Dam
ansara)
Portable stove- please do this kind of business outdoor. We used a simple one wi
th 2 canisters of gas. You can also get one that you can hook up straight to a g
as cylinder (in fact, this might be better)
Long pole- broom handle should do it
A metal hook
Bird Prep:
15 liters of oil (we used good old palm oil of course but any oil with a high sm
oking point is good)
A turkey- we got a 4 kg gobbler- start with a smaller one so that its easier to d
eep fry
A ball of string
Meat seasonings
And thats about it! We also had a small fire extinguisher ready but found out tha
t we didnt need to use it but hey, safety first.
So how do you fry a gobbler?
Get the turkey ready for its oil bath:
Truss bird and devise a harness that you can hook on the broom handle. Make sure
you measure the distance between submerging the chook and the pole. We actually
had 25 liters of oil ready but in the end we used about 12- 13 liters.
Make sure to measure it first by putting the turkey in the pot and using water.
The turkey should be wholly submerged in oil so the amount of water you do this
is your measure for oil.
Heating the oil
Most sites said about 30 minutes to heat up oil to right temperature- about 180C
but this requires a thermometer and who really has that so we defaulted to the
Malaysian way, the art of agak-agak.
In the end maybe because our stove was small and the pot big, it took us about a
n hour to get the oil hot enough.
Use the turkey neck dipped in periodically to test the heat. The oil should stop
moving in the pot when its hot enough and bubbles well with the neck in. When yo
u take the neck out too, it should be hot not lukewarm to the touch.
Right about now, you will also need to change to a fresh canister so be careful
here. Lift the pot of boiling oil up and set it aside and you need to use a clot
h to change it. Once you set the pot back oil, give it 5 minutes to get it back
on the good temperature.
Making the turkey tasty:
Pat it as dry as you can to avoid spatter and you just need to rub it all over w
ith meat rub.
A combo of salt, pepper and Cajun spices would be just fine.
Hook the string harness to the hook that is on the pole and gently lower it into
the oil- horizontally. It should bubble gloriously not unlike fried chicken in
a wok. You can unhook the string and let it loll to the side. The turkey will be
quite buoyant but dont worry about it. So ever so often dip in a ladle and douse
d the top part with oil. We also turned it a few times. There were no explosions
and it was pretty safe. We figured its because the stove is small so the oil nev
er got to dangerous levels. If you are using a bigger stove just be aware of thi
s. Or it might be that palm oil is a pretty stable oil. At any rate we did every
thing with bare hands and had no need for the fire extinguisher at all!
How long do you fry it?
Rule of thumb for deep-frying is about 3-4 minutes a pound.
So since 4 kg turkey is about 9 pounds, thats about 36 minutes. Some sites say af
ter this, just leave it in for a further 10 15 minutes. Some also say that once
the turkey is done it will float to the top but as our turkey was pretty buoyant
, this didnt help.
In total we deep-fried it for 45 minutes and lifted out the most ridonkculous cr
ispy deep brown bird. The smell alone was enough to get the neighbours out. Imag
ine fried chicken fragrance multiplied by 10!
Shake off excess oil and let it sit for a bit in a paper towel covered roasting
pan. We carved it after less than 10 minutes- too excited to let it sit plus weve
been smelling it for the past 40 minutes.
Verdict:
It wasnt oily at all, the hot oil seals in the moisture so what you get is an inc
redibly moist and succulent bird. It tastes totally different from a roasted or
barbecued bird. The skin was crunchy- like keropok and the rub was imbedded deep
- superb! There is a fortune to be made by selling bags of this stuff.
Also since places like the thighs and wings are not quite white meat, it has a m
ore interesting flavour there. All the sinews fused into crispy goodness. We did
nt have cranberry sauce but a friend made a sambal hot sauce that went a treat wi
th the turkey. Perhaps because its deep fried, it had that fried chook chilli sau
ce made in heaven taste to it. And that one mini turkey fed all 10 of us well.
This turkey is gold! Only thing is that its best eaten piping hot, as hot as your
greedy fingers can stand it. Thats when the succulence is at its zenith. A secon
d helping of the breast after its stood awhile is not as juicy but still way bett
er than roasted.
Cost:
Admittedly its not cheap but hey, Christmas only comes once a year. Here is our t
ally:
Big pot RM155
Gas stove RM20
2 canisters of gas RM8
Turkey RM140
Meat rub RM10
String RM3
Oil RM42
Total cost: RM378.
But hey once youve gotten the stove and pot you can keep on doing it with half th
e price and it does feed a lot of people. So yeah, go ahead fry up that turkey a
nd have a Merry Deep-fried Christmas everyone!
For more recipes and food madness go to friedchillies.com. We now also have a fo
od channel on Channel 838 on hyppTV Unifi. Check our shows at www.friedchillies.
tv