Funny story,
The company I work at, they give out giant bird turkey, at least 18-20lbs per turkey, to all its employees, right. Sooo grateful of it. A week before December 24th, my husband and I realized, we do not own a stove/oven, though. We do have one, it came with the house when we got this house 3 years ago. It crapped on us a month or two in. Since we have table top oven, we never purchased a new stove/oven, as our table top oven was enough. Buying a new stove/oven would cost us 3000 CAD$. We ain’t got the money for it. So we thought of a turkey frier. A week before Christmas would be just a nightmare trying to get one online though. We looked up around town and almost given up. A few turkey friers were way too small for our bird. So we made plan B, for steak dinner instead turkey dinner. Luckily, while I was at work, my husband managed to find one that was big enough for our turkey, 2 days before Dec 24th. It was the only one left at the store, in fact. Phew 😅
The fryer we got is an oil less fryer. Sounds awesome, right? However, we never had one, we never fried turkey, with or without oil, we always roasted ours in an oven. This was our very first time ever, frying turkey. So. Since we never tested this kind of cooking, our plan B was still on the table, just in case 🤣🤣🤣🤣
On December 24th morning, we prepared everything. The fryer came with recipes booklet, but we decided not to follow any. The following recipe share is how we did it. What a success I must mention. We were so happy with the result. I did not record clips as our minds were just too occupied of so many negativity of what ifs 😅😅😅😅
18 lbs frozen turkey, thaw for a night or two in the fridge
1/2 c unsalted butter (next time I think I’m gonna use salted butter instead though)
1 tbsp each garlic powder, onion powder, vegetable rice seasoning (or Vegeta seasoning), dried crushed thyme and rosemary.
2 apples, 5 mandarin, fresh thyme (a couple sprigs), salt, 1 onion
Cubed of still firm unsalted butter (for under skin and inside turkey cavity)
Take out liver, heart and neck from inside of the turkey, set aside (we are gonna make gravy with them)
Grind thyme and rosemary into powder like. I used mortal and pestle for it.
Pat dry turkey (make sure completely dry)
Mix butter and seasonings in a bowl, set aside
Slice apples, mandarin and onion to halves
Rub the inside of turkey with generous salt
Drop a couple butter cubes into the cavity along with halved apples, mandarins, fresh thyme, and half of an onion, as many as you could stuff in.
Push in a couple of cubed butter under turkey skin here and there.
Now, to use this oil less fryer, the turkey will be put standing up. Learning this, my husband and I decided to shut off the turkey cavity by pulling its bottom and attach-shut skin with bottom with toothpicks.
Now rub butter mixture all over turkey and sprinkle salt everywhere. A little messy yes, hence, next time I’d like to use salted butter instead 🤣
Push in meat thermometer on the thickest part of the breast
Preheat your fryer and fry your turkey for 3.5 H.
Now, normally when making the gravy, I would also oven roast the neck and whatnot, but since this was all new to us, I made boiled gravy instead.
Place neck, liver, and heart in a pot. Add in the rest of apples, mandarin, and the other half of onion, plus a couple sprigs of fresh thyme. Pour in enough water to cover everything, bring to fully boil for 5 mins on high temperature. Lower temperature and continue cooking for 30 mins.
Mash mandarin and apples, mix nicely in the broth.
Take out onion, skins that didn’t get to mash, neck, liver and heart, strain.
Bring back to boil, and thickened with 1 tbsp cornstarch. That was it 😊
Oil-less Fried Turkey
Ingredients
- 18 lbs frozen turkey thaw for a night or two in the fridge
- 1/2 c unsalted butter next time I think I’m gonna use salted butter instead though
- 1 tbsp each garlic powder onion powder, vegetable rice seasoning (or Vegeta seasoning), dried crushed thyme and rosemary.
- 2 apples 5 mandarin, fresh thyme (a couple sprigs), salt, 1 onion
- Cubed of still firm unsalted butter for under skin and inside turkey cavity
Instructions
- Take out liver, heart and neck from inside of the turkey, set aside (we are gonna make gravy with them)
- Grind thyme and rosemary into powder like. I used mortal and pestle for it.
- Pat dry turkey (make sure completely dry)
- Mix butter and seasonings in a bowl, set aside
- Slice apples, mandarin and onion to halves
- Rub the inside of turkey with generous salt
- Drop a couple butter cubes into the cavity along with halved apples, mandarins, fresh thyme, and half of an onion, as many as you could stuff in.
- Push in a couple of cubed butter under turkey skin here and there.
- Now, to use this oil less fryer, the turkey will be put standing up. Learning this, my husband and I decided to shut off the turkey cavity by pulling its bottom and attach-shut skin with bottom with toothpicks.
- Now rub butter mixture all over turkey and sprinkle salt everywhere. A little messy yes, hence, next time I’d like to use salted butter instead 🤣
- Push in meat thermometer on the thickest part of the breast
- Preheat your frier and fry your turkey for 3.5 H.
Notes
Place neck, liver, and heart in a pot. Add in the rest of apples, mandarin, and the other half of onion, plus a couple sprigs of fresh thyme. Pour in enough water to cover everything, bring to fully boil for 5 mins on high temperature. Lower temperature and continue cooking for 30 mins. Mash mandarin and apples, mix nicely in the broth. Take out onion, skins that didn’t get to mash, neck, liver and heart, strain. Bring back to boil, and thickened with 1 tbsp cornstarch. That was it
