Rule

Obligatory: make sure your deep fryer turkey is fully thawed before dunking it. If you're pulling it out of the freezer at the time of this writing, you're gonna start a fire. Happy turkey day!

110

I'm not from the USA and ice always wanted to ask, is deep frying the turkey really how it's done or is it just a joke?

12
- Most (99%) oven roast the turkey but the fattest of rednecks deep fry it to show reverence to their fat ancestors.
  
  43
- Nope it's definitely a thing. We've got a bird in the oven now, but some friends are bringing over another bird and their fryer this afternoon. Deep fried turkey is delicious, nevermind the fat jokes lol
  
  9
- there are some restaurants that hire a trailer truck full of friers and line them up in the car park to create an assembly line of fried turkeys.
  
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- The US is a very diverse country, some people deep fry their turkey, most people don't. Many families don't make turkey at all.
  
  2

I read an article about not defrosting if you’re cooking it in the oven. It said you just add 50% time at temp.

I’m not a bird guy though, so I’m really just here to hint at knowledge that exists for you to find, which really makes you think about how knowledge works in the first place and how your brain can trigger memory from either sensory input or thought or both, but then sometimes it’s not there also.

Anyway someone in the fam got covid so I’m doing steaks instead.

37

Good rambling, would read again, 8/10

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- Authentic frontier jibberish
  
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How can you rub butter and spices under the skin if the turkey is frozen solid?

7
- How are you doing it under the skin?
  
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- Sounds like a question for a bird person, I’m intrigued by the under the skin thing though.
  
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- Wait until it's kinda thawed, then take it out and do that
  
  1
Could you consider that thoughts are just a form of sensory input?

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- Boy howdy, I have adhd and I am certain that is correct.
  
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Nah you can actually defrost it really fast by doing sous vide or an aproximation By having somewhat regularly flowing water with it in the sink or bathtub. You can also cook frozen but you will want to really rub butter or oil on the skin on the outside since you cant get it under the skin and baste the turkey every hour or so until its up to temp.

Its too late to get a nice brine but there are reasonable answers to getting a nice dinner anyways.

23

who else basting their yurkey til it's up

9
Fast defrosting is actually not advisable.

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- Its not super great, but it sorta depends on how you bring it up and that you dont do it in a way that takes hours of it being above the bacteria threshold like by using an immersion circulator. And then baking it fully up to temp immediately after. Ita not best practice but its often usable if you have no other options.
  
  2

It's only too late if you expect to have company.

It's never too late if you're planning on eating that whole big boy yourself.

20

Just set your deep fryer to 450 and sous-vide that frozen bird in hot oil for a minute.

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I don't have time for that. Can I put it to 900 and get it done in 30 seconds?

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- Crank it up to 27000 and gently dip it for about a second
  
  9

Mine’s been in the brine for about 24 hours. Just added another bag of ice and flipped the bird.

17

Nothing like a few long pigs to celebrate.

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🖕

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Just in case anyone needs to hear this, 12 hours ago was also too late.

17

This is why I do a ham. Much easier.

17

It's too late to defrost a frozen ham, too.

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- Depends on the size of the ham. One chunk of ham just for two people? Its possible.
  
  But I just didn't freeze mine, its got a sell-by date of Dec. 3rd, so kept it in the fridge.
  
  7

If you leave it in a full bathtub now, you should be ready to fry tomorrow (~9 hours to thaw 10-14lbs turkey in a tub). Too late for a good bake though.

16

Spatchcock that turkey and it'll bake no problem

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- I've started with a frozen bird in the morning, and had a nicely baked turkey at a reasonable time this way. Put it in a bath until it's not entirely a brick, replacing some of the water frequently. Balance it in the sink so you can run the faucet down the neck. Run water until spine is thawed enough to spatchcock. Doesn't matter if most the meat is still frozen, it'll cook fine.
  
  *Went to brine my turkey the day before and found a weird "growth". It was really unappetizing and concerning, so I overreacted and threw out the bird. Could only find frozens, so the new bird only had overnight in the fridge. After buying a new turkey I thought to get on the Butterball turkey help line. They were fantastic and assured me the growth was actually a processing burn and totally safe.
  
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- Sure, lemme just fetch the turkey chainsaw
  
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- I love the word spatchcock. It's two already funny and silly sounding words smashed together to make an even funnier and sillier sounding word. It's a clever way of cooking it, too; it just sounds so silly. Spatchcock!
  
  Thanks for reminding me that the word spatchcock exists! Spatchcock, spatchcocked, spatchcocking! You've got this word stuck in my head now!
  
  4

It's fine, Xmas is still over a month away. Better get the sprouts on now though.

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I'm at a US military base in the Eastern hemisphere so it's absolutely too late for us here.

2

it's too late

2

That's me everytime I have frozen ground meat. Then I stab it like a serial killer with a dull knife in the heated cooking pot until it breaks. It's almost like a ritual.

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