Forget the turkey fryer, use infrared heat!
For the past few years I've heard stories of Darwin Award candidates who have done something stupid with a turkey fryer. Either they pour oil all over the place and burn up their yard, garage or whole damn house, or they burn themselves and/or others in the pursuit of a juicy turkey. I heard about one particular dumb ass who injected his turkey with Jack Daniel and blew the whole thing up. I've fried many turkeys myself and haven't had any problems other than spilling a little oil (it had cooled down) on the lawn and killed a spot of grass about a foot in diameter.
The days of the turkey fryer are numbered due to a new cooker I have recently had the pleasure to use. My boss received a "turkey cooker" right before Thanksgiving made by Char-Broil called "The Big Easy". His Turkey Day plans didn't involve him actually cooking a turkey so he let me borrow it, which was a godsend because I was having a full house that day and would have to do some magical oven management to pull off the meal.
This thing looks like a souped up turkey fryer powered by a propane tank, but unlike a normal fryer, this device uses no oil, it uses infrared heat. Infrared heat cooks much like and oven in that it is dry heat. There's a propane burner in the bottom that heats up a stainless steel removable jacket that houses a wire basket where the meat is placed. There's just an "On" dial and an "Ignition" dial, nothing else. There's no need to regulate temperature, it's all built in and does it itself. It really could be more simple.
The day before Thanksgiving I brined a 13 pound turkey in an Igloo cooler to save on limited refrigerator space. I cleaned the brine off the bird the next morning in preparation of christening the brand new cooker. I started it up to burn off any packaging residue because this thing was brand spanking new and had never been used. After about 10 minutes it seemed to be ready to rock. I loaded the turkey in the wire basket and dropped that bad boy in the "Big Easy". It took a little over an hour and a half to cook the bird. I did nothing but check on it about every 1/2 hour. Too easy. I pulled it out and let it rest about 30 minutes so the juices would run back into the meat. I couldn't believe how crispy the skin was and the beautiful golden color. I carved it up and everyone was blown away by how good it was.
The next day at work I told of my great success with the cooker and that it was so easy to use. One of the guys suggested that I cook a turkey for everyone there. The next week someone brought in a turkey and I repeated my efforts. It again was unreal! Everyone was amazed. "What else can we cook?" was the next big question.
My boss said that he had a couple of pork shoulders in the walk-in cooler and that I could give those a shot. I put on a low sugar dry rub on the meat and stacked them on top of each other in the basket. It took about 5 hours cook them. The meat was perfect! I brought it some true Eastern North Carolina vinegar based BBQ sauce and another guy brought in a thicker sauce made with the Evan Williams Cherry Reserve whiskey. We all chowed down. The room was silent except for the sound of blissful chewing and the occasional grunt of satisfaction.
I've now been deem the official cook of the store. In addition to the turkey and pork shoulder, I've cooked a couple of chickens and am going to do a beef roast on Monday. I'm leaning towards doing a leg of lamb and possibly a prime rib in the next coming weeks. I'll let you know how it goes.
Ciao down!
Penn
The days of the turkey fryer are numbered due to a new cooker I have recently had the pleasure to use. My boss received a "turkey cooker" right before Thanksgiving made by Char-Broil called "The Big Easy". His Turkey Day plans didn't involve him actually cooking a turkey so he let me borrow it, which was a godsend because I was having a full house that day and would have to do some magical oven management to pull off the meal.
The day before Thanksgiving I brined a 13 pound turkey in an Igloo cooler to save on limited refrigerator space. I cleaned the brine off the bird the next morning in preparation of christening the brand new cooker. I started it up to burn off any packaging residue because this thing was brand spanking new and had never been used. After about 10 minutes it seemed to be ready to rock. I loaded the turkey in the wire basket and dropped that bad boy in the "Big Easy". It took a little over an hour and a half to cook the bird. I did nothing but check on it about every 1/2 hour. Too easy. I pulled it out and let it rest about 30 minutes so the juices would run back into the meat. I couldn't believe how crispy the skin was and the beautiful golden color. I carved it up and everyone was blown away by how good it was.
The next day at work I told of my great success with the cooker and that it was so easy to use. One of the guys suggested that I cook a turkey for everyone there. The next week someone brought in a turkey and I repeated my efforts. It again was unreal! Everyone was amazed. "What else can we cook?" was the next big question.
I've now been deem the official cook of the store. In addition to the turkey and pork shoulder, I've cooked a couple of chickens and am going to do a beef roast on Monday. I'm leaning towards doing a leg of lamb and possibly a prime rib in the next coming weeks. I'll let you know how it goes.
Ciao down!
Penn
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