I have been a diehard, turkey purist, snob for a hundred years. Always bought an all natural fresh turkey (Plainville Farms, to be exact) up until about 5 years ago when they started having supply problems along with the prices skyrocketing (when it got to be $75 just for turkey, which Wayne doesn't even like) I switched to a Wegman's brand premium turkey. Meh. Not worth the premium price. Switched to the Wegman's brand regular fresh turkey. Meh. Nothing special. Tried a frozen, .39 special with a minimum purchase deal...that was special alright, so salty I had to throw the soup out.

Fast forward to this year - Jess's parents had Thanksgiving yesterday as both of them have to work on the day. And Josh (of all people, Josh ) deep-fried 2 thawed butterball turkeys from Walmart.

Best damn turkey I've eaten in years...

Go figure.

Josh has now bought himself turkey cookin' duties for the foreseeable future...

Deep fried turkey? I would never think to deep fry a turkey but it sounds absolutely delish
My fiancé's work always gives their employees a free turkey to take home the week of, we haven't had to buy one in a couple years!

We've done the deep fried thing. It is good. I think it seals in the juice better than trying to roast them.

Deep fried turkeys has become a southern tradition. lol. We don't do it but we have lots and lots of friends who do. They even have special turkey fryers!

simplify wrote:

Deep fried turkeys has become a southern tradition. lol. We don't do it but we have lots and lots of friends who do. They even have special turkey fryers!

Jess's mom bought a propane fired turkey fryer last year - she's loaning it to us for Josh to do one for us on Thurs.

Josh did one last year on one of his jobs. The crew had to work Thanksgiving and Josh's budget also included money for keeping his crew happy so he bought a turkey fryer (don't know what happended to that one) and they used a big ole shop crane to lower the turkey into the hot oil. I think they did a fairly large turkey, though.

I can't believe I was such a stick in the mud about this...though the problem for me was both drippings for the gravy and cooking the stuffing in the turkey. We've solved that - I'll do another small turkey the day before with stuffing, make the gravy and use that turkey for turkey soup/salad/devine (all things that a slightly dry meat won't be a problem.) We'll use the fried one for dinner and turkey sandwiches the next day. Since it will be a small one, shouldn't be a lot of leftovers (I used to do a 26-28 pounder, everyone took leftovers home, I had pots of soup and didn't have to cook for a week...well, sort of, as I said, Wayne is not a turkey fan.)

And the damn thing cooks in about 45 minutes

Yes! They do cook fast and you have to be 100% sure they are TOTALLY defrosted if it's a frozen one (disaster happens if not). lol. Man all this talk about turkey is making me hungry.

Well I officially want to try fried turkey now.

And I'm laughing at all you yanks!  I've been down here long enough (came down from the frozen north in '78) that deep fried anything doesn't come as a surprise.  Personally, I'd rather have a good roasted turkey with clam / mussel dressing (my uncles favourite and best recipe - of course from Mississippi!)

One of the locals was talking about a deep fried cheese sandwich - sorry, I can't even begin to picture that!!

I hope you all have a good turkey day! Being a bachelor, I'll be wandering around the couple of restaurants locally that have free turkey and trimmings (what?? I'm alone and I'm cheap!!)

I've had it once. Tasted like KFC! I love KFC, hahaha. But I do prefer the traditional roasted turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Mostly for the stuffing.

Artic_Wind wrote:

I've had it once. Tasted like KFC! I love KFC, hahaha. But I do prefer the traditional roasted turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Mostly for the stuffing.

Yup...the stuffing (and the gravy drippings) would be a deal killer but...I'll do another small one for that and use the meat from that for soup and turkey salad. And stuffing and gravy taste pretty much the same cooked the day of and the day after so that allows me to roast the "stuffing turkey" the day before. Even with 2 ovens, oven space gets really scarce on the day of...

Al - the older I get, the more a restaurant Thanksgiving begins to appeal. I've been doing this for 29 years now and its beginning to get old (especially since my dietary restrictions have really f*@#'d up our traditional recipes )...but as long as Josh is in the area, we'll continue...gradually handing the prep over to him and Jess (who is a phenomenal cook But she is pregnant at the moment and will have an infant next year so not quite time to hand over the reins yet). If he moves out of area, then the Harbour Hotel buffet looks mighty good

I know, old thread but, one of my faves and, a year around deal here. Either store bought on after holiday sales or, hunted for wild turkeys are a staple of my diet and, injected and deep fried is the best. Crispy, deep golden skin, moist, tender, flavorful flesh, even the breast is moist and tasty that way.

If you're going to fry the turkey, make the dressing as usual but then, make golf ball sized balls out of it and, fry it too - dressing hush puppies.

OMG, the fried stuffing hush puppies sound so good!

They are and, little southern secret, given our love for fried ANYTHING down here, Stove Top fries up nice too. Great with fried pork tenderloin or fried fish instead of cornmeal hush puppies. If you like add extra minced onion or minced jalapenos.

I mean come on, we can deep fry watermelon, candy bars, bacon, pizza and, butter, you think we wouldn't fry dressing or stuffing too? LOL.