I love that every year fire departments are like “hey. maybe DON’T fry your turkeys?”
and across the nation, patriots rise up and shout “FUCK YOU” bc surely it’ll be fine for THEM
and then start massive grease fires in their backyards
it is my most favorite thanksgiving tradition
for non-americans who have no idea what I’m talking about, a TON of fire departments and public health people will do annual presentation videos on how deep frying turkeys can go catastrophically bad
and every year, the american public goes “…anyway, where’s my propane tank-”
“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fry.”
As a psa yes it’s *technically* possible to deep fry a turkey, most people who try it do so because they didn’t take it out of the freezer early enough for it to defrost entirely and think that deep frying is a quicker more reliable way to cook the turkey without drying it out.
THAT’S the mistake.
To deep fry a whole turkey you’ll need an absolutely massive deep pot, half filled with oil heated to between 350°f-400°f, placed on an even surface. If the turkey is fully defrosted, you need to carefully and slowly lower the turkey into the oil using something else (preferably something metal) to hold the turkey itself so that you don’t have your hands/arms above the hot oil when the moisture from the turkey skin hits the oil and starts steaming.
If there is literally any ice or frozen moisture left in that turkey and it hits the oil too quickly, that turkey will *literally explode.*
Not a joke. Not an exaggeration.
The ice in the turkey will get pulled with it to the bottom of the pot, where it will quickly melt into water and then get flash boiled into steam. The steam will quickly expand under the hot oil, which will shoot out of the top of the pot in a 400°f geyser of hot oil and splash everywhere around the pot. If it hits the fire under the pot, the oil can then potentially catch on fire. If you’ve made the mistake of doing this inside, you could very well burn down your house.
So it’s not a “Do Not Ever Do This” but it absolutely is a “Make sure you know what you’re doing, because fucking it up could ruin your life if you walk away from it at all”.
amhrancas 