The Great Turkey Thaw (or, a lesson in planning ahead)

Me and the hubs just got back from our annual trip to Portland Thanksgiving weekend and what a great time it's been. Let's start with Wednesday night, however.

My parents decided they wanted to try something new and deep fry a turkey this year. My sister's boyfriend happens to be quite the Fry Daddy and offered to do it (at least I think this is how it all went down). Being a frugal woman, my mom decided that the price of the oil required to fry a turkey wasn't exactly cost effective for frying just one turkey, so she decided to do 3 (or decided that the sister's boyfriend, Drew, would). John gets turkeys through work and was able to snag 2, which was great because they are free. However, we did not acquire said turkeys until Wednesday, and they were frozen. This is what I learned about turkey thawing:

1. You cannot defrost a turkey on the counter (okay, I already knew this but it was more a matter of convincing John of this fact)
2. It takes 3-4 days to thaw a frozen turkey in the refrigerator (so that was not an option)
3. It can take 2+ hours to defrost a turkey in a microwave. And if you have 2 turkeys to defrost that is quite a bit of nuking you've got yourself into. Also the turkey has to fit in the microwave. (so that was not an option)
4. It takes 6-8 hours to thaw a 12-16 pound turkey in a cold water bath. 

Well, jackpot. I've got a double sink and 6-8 hours to kill. Everything is under control. However, the requirement is that you must cook the turkey shortly after thawing it in cold water. Furthermore, you must change the water every 30-60 minutes so that it doesn't get too cold and thus ineffective for thawing.

Let me rewind a bit. For those of you who don't know, to deep fry a turkey is a dangerous undertaking. The turkey must be both completely thawed and thoroughly pat-dried inside and out (a job I most certainly did not volunteer for). Favorite quote from Dad: "Man, I just found another crevice in this thing!"

In the most dramatic way I can possibly choose to word this: If I could not successfully thaw my share of the turkeys, Thanksgiving was ruined.

Alright, so the plan is to eat at 4. If you've done the math and have figured in pat-drying, flavor injecting, cook time (approx. 45 minutes p.b. - per bird), and other miscellaneous preparation, PLUS the 8-9 hour window I've allotted and the requirement that the turkeys are cooked not too long after thawing, that put me at approximately 1:00 am to begin defrosting.How could I not accept this challenge? The fate of Thanksgiving rested on one woman's shoulders.


There is a moral to this story:
If you are not sure if you're ready to have children yet, try thawing 2 15-pound turkeys. Seriously, getting up every hour to change the water in the sink must be as close as you can get to having to get up and feed/comfort/change a newborn baby. I have concluded that I do not want children yet.



Did I mention I don't even eat Turkey?

There's no evidence of me sleeping on the couch and babying my little turkeys, but here are some other pics of the successful Turkey Fry:

Drew hard at work on Turkey 1 of 3 (he infused them with 3 different types of flavoring)

Now if that's not couple's team-building I'm not sure what is. I'm not sure what this step is called, but I'm pretty sure it would come out inappropriate if I tried to name it.

The true test of how well we dried the turkeys - Drew took one for the team by sitting next the the fryer the whole time.

The parents' Thanksgiving Table. Note the perfectly sliced can o' cranberries.

The slightly concerning good news is that we now have a deep fryer. Don't even think I haven't begun considering what I could possibly fry up with that bad boy.


More pictures/sharing about our trip soon. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.