if you have a Dickies close by, order a Cajun fried turkey for 59.99. You won't regret it.

sounds delicious, I may give it a try

Fried a bunch of em. Here is how I fry em.

I try not to fry any turkey over 14 pounds and 12 pounds is the perfect frying size. Put turkey in pot and fill with water. Mark water level 1/2 inch below where water level was. Why, because oil expands as it is heated. If the water level came closer than 4 inches from the top of the pot, you need a bigger pot or a smaller turkey. Biggest mistake folks make is too large a bird for the pot.

Remove bird and dry pot. Season bird anyway you like but we like to inject with Creole Butter. Chef Williams of Tony Chaterey will make a fine bird. I like to use Fiesta fajita seasoning all over the bird and inside cavity. Once injected, put into non scented trash bag and place in ice chest covered with ice or put in fridge. i like to let it sit overnight.

Next day, take out turkey and truss up with cotton butchers twine. Tie up legs and draw in wings and thighs close to bird. This will keep the skin from blowing out and will let the bird cook more uniformly.

Add oil to that marked line and bring temp of oil up to 360 degrees. Now take a quart sauce pan and dip into oil filling pan and set aside. This is to insure you don't have too much oil. If you need more you can add the hot oil back easily.

Once oil is 360, turn fire off!!! Lower bird slowly into pot. once bird is fully in pot, add the other oil if needed. Then turn fire back on as high as it will go. That bird is a large heat sink and your oil temp will drop to about 310 to 320 degrees. You do not want it to go below 300 as that will make a greasy bird. Start timing at 3.5 minutes per pound. So a 12 pound bird will take 42 minutes max. I would check it at 39 minutes. It's done when you get 160 degrees in middle of the breast. Once temp gets back up to 340 degrees start adjusting burner to keep that temp. I try to not go over 350 degrees as it can split the turkey skin or make it a dark color. You want the skin intact to keep in the juice.

Once you do a few birds you will get the process down and won't have to mess with the sauce pan as you will just know. Good luck and git ready for the finest bird you ever tasted!

well hell.. I bought a 22lb bird yesterday.. is that no good?

The issue is the size of the pot. It will fry up like any other if your pot is big enough. The standard turkey frying pots they sell everywhere won't hold a bird that size. If I was you, I'd smoke that big one and fry a smaller one.

Bout to do a test run with some wings!

The pot I bought said up to 30 lb turkey.. Bet you're right thou probly shouldn't try to stuff it in there. Guess I'll have to grab another one

If your pot says up to a 30 lb turkey you're good. Most pots are smaller. I wanna see pics of the wings

I do know you hang from a rope and lower in slowly . WARNING If your turkey is frozen it will flame up big time and possibly blow the heck out of your pot and can cause a huge fire !! NEVER DROP IN A FROZEN TURKEY !! Look it up on YouTube , you'll see what I mean.

Man they came out awesome!! Definitely ready to take on a whole bird this weekend! Did 'em in my fish fryer, worked pretty well! Probly don't need to inject wings but I wanted to see what the marinade tastes like with the seasoning. Did the drums in the Tony's original and the flappers with the extra spicy, both with black pepper and injected with jalapeno butter. Phenomenal.. fiance was blown away!

On a side note, if anyone is looking, Academy has the 30lb fryer kit (pot, stand, hook, thermometer, and burner) for $39.99 right now! Was gonna use my giant crawfish setup but for the same price I'd have to spend on the extra oil I bought a whole kit! I did try it, and the 22lb fits in the pot perfectly with plenty room to spare.

That looks AWESOME sir!. Good job on the cook.

I kinda wanted to make a post about fried pork ribs tonight, but I decided to give this pig to a family in need and is packaged and in the freezer now. I will post another later. If you've never fried pork ribs, (I prefer a pig under 150 lbs for this, under 100 lbs is best IMO ) you need to try it. Just trim them (separate ribs), season them like you did the turkey, and fry the same. Dust with a little seasoning as soon as they come out and they are something else. Give that a shot. I want turkey, again now.

I did get to thinkin about what else I could fry up like that. I got plenty of pork in the freezer I'm gonna have to try that next!

Most turkey fryin kits come with a 28 quart pot. These pots are narrower and taller than a standard 28 qt pot. This is so they will use less oil and maximize bird size that will fir the pot. If you have a 28 quart pot turkey fry pot, I would not attempt any bird over 14 pounds. There are much larger pots available that will handle a 22 pound bird but they take a whole lot more oil.

Most 28 qt turkey fry pots will use about 3 to 3.5 gallons of oil.

I would take it to the local BBQ house and pay them to fry it. Ask to be the last bird they fry and get the seasoning left behind.

Fried up my 22lb bird last sunday. Everything went without a hitch! DavidP you saved my a$$ with the tip about scooping out some hot oil before dropping the turkey. I marked it with water, pat dried, injected and seasoned all the day before, let it sit uncovered in the fridge for 24hrs. Poured the oil to my mark and heated to 375*. When I checked it, the oil was about 2" above the mark! Scooped out a full 2qt pot's worth and slowly dropped the bird, literally had zero extra room! Had a little splatter over the edge but nothing big. Had I not scooped some out I think It could've gone south in a hurry! Cranked the burner up to full blast, oil never got under 340*. @22 lbs I fried for 66 minutes trying to keep the oil at 350 the entire time. I pulled it and let it rest for about 10 minutes. At first I thought I'd pulled a Griswold, when I poked the skin on the leg it collapsed like there was nothing underneath. Fortunately it was all there, and D@MN was it good! We had 14 people over and they all loved it! White meat was just as juicy as the dark, the skin was super crispy and delicious! Will definitely be doing it again for christmas, maybe 2 smaller birds this time though. I want to experiment a little with the seasoning and injections. Even in my big pot, a 22lb bird was about as big as I'd wanna go. Thanks for all the help guys.. couldn't have turned out any better!




My yard buddies couldn't resist when they got a whiff



finished product

You don't think he will try to fry a deer next year do you?... I'm getting the heck out of here!

Please excuse ignorance .....but I cannot figure why fry a turkey. What to do afterward with all the oil needed ....now contaminated with grease from the bird. There's gotta be a lot of tiny dark flesh pieces left in the oil....that would have to be filtered out (a tedious process) if you plan on using the oil again. Seems just a lazy man's method to cook a turkey, while resulting in considerable wastage.

My thoughts:

fry some taters in the grease after the bird to clean oil, let cool, all the fall off stuff will settle to the bottom (kinda like water in a gas can), then pour the top 3/4+ of the oil off into the original container for the next go around. used to do that all the time after doing a big fish fry.

Once you try it.. If it's done right.. You won't want it any other way. I've sworn by my moms roasted turkey for 30 years now. All her meat comes out perfect. Can't beat fried though. After doing it you'll realize it's not just a lazy mans cop out. It's not an easy task by any means. Might not take as long, but why does that matter? As for the grease, i poured it through a grease filter back into the original container after cooking. No mess, took about 3 minutes.

That's like saying baked chicken wings are just as good as deep fried. Just no room in this good country for that kind of talk