After a quite a few days in bed not feeling well and sort of depressed I couldn't sleep last night but was rewarded with the most beautiful sunrise! There are benefits to being a morning person I suppose, but sadly I work nights and only see these things by chance.
I finally pulled myself out of my miasma last night and went over my friends house who my family is sharing Thanksgiving with, and injected 3 of the turkeys that I will deep fry for today meal. It's our contribution to the dinner. AND I make my own fancy-ass marinade that has pretty much every spice in it but cilantro (which I loathe and wouldn't be fitting here even if I did like it) After I made a big ol' quart of this fancy marinade I injected the three turkeys while my friend kept me company and watched my bizarre and willy-nilly way of concocting the marinade that also includes fruit juices and whiskey. The injecting went quite well up until almost the last moment of the last turkey when I ended up squirting myself in the eye (the hot sauce in there stings!!) instead of getting it in the bird! But I am excited about how they will taste today when we deep fry them. They've had 12 hours minimum to marinade so that should be pretty yummy when I take them out of the deep fryer pot.
I've fried me many a turkey and have never burned myself (other than a bit of spattered oil here and there) nor burned down the house, garage, etc., but I have had more people tell me to be careful the last time I did one that I wanted to bop them on the head. As if I'd just fallen off the turnip truck! I guess northern men aren't used to women playing with fire. (giggle, snort, grin) Or at least not with 5 gallons of peanut oil to play with it with!
The funny thing is that folks up North here DO burn themselves and burn down their garages! While no one in the South, no matter how drunk we are when we are doin' 'em, ever does. I guess every culture has their innate gift.
My first time doing a deep fried Turkey up here in the North by myself was on the porch of my City Island apt. for my then boyfriend and his friends from back home in England. There was snow outside, but if anything went wrong I was only about 50ft from the bay so I could easily deal with any disasters. The first turkey was fantastic! The second" Well... not so much. I didn't wait until the peanut oil got back up to 350 degrees so the bird never got seared/sealed by the oil. I kept checking it cause it never floated to the top and couldn't understand why it didn't look right. The last time I tried to pick it up it just fell all to pieces back into the oil. EWWW! Deep Fried Turkeys are actually not oil at all the heat instantly sears the bird so that no oil gets into the meat during frying (if you do it right) and it seals in the juices so it's very very delicious! That turkey that fell apart ended up sitting in the pot for most of the winter. As soon as it got warm enough to actually get the oil to soften up a little I dumped the sludgy mixture into 5-6 plastic bags and into a box closed up nice and tight so that it could go to the dump. It had been too frozen to dispose of that winter and being frozen didn't smell thank goodness! But I'll never forget the lesson learned about deep frying and proper temperatures!
May everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember all they have to be thankful for.
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