I’ve just come back from my first Texas Thanksgiving. The absolute highlight was a deep fried turkey. YEs it does sound awful but actually it was the best turkey I’ve ever tasted. The oil is heated to around 300 degrees F in a special cooker, then the turkey is lowered in. It was quite a big bird but it cooked in about 40 mins. It cooks the meat so quickly and keeps the moisture in, so it tastes great. Unlike the usual cardboard that you get after you’ve roasted one of these birds for hours, the meat is moist and delicious. Because the oil is so hot it crisps the outside but it doesn’t soak in. Wow.
Actually this method of cooking is the biggest cuase of Thanksgiving fires. I think that’s to a large extent because people cook them indoors. That’s just not too bright is it? Even worse, if you use a frozen turkey you can turn it into a surface air missile by dropping it into the hot fat. Scary but worth watching from a distance maybe…
Another strange Thanksgiving dish I heard about is the Turdurken. This is a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. Why would anyone inflict such horror on these birds I have no idea. I bet it’s a Southern US thing – I haven’t heard of anything similar that doesn’t involve either a) swans or b) Henry VIII.