Posted on 11/21/2005 10:48:45 AM PST by lowbridge
Friday, November 26, 2004
Thanksgiving 2004: Hellfire, Hot Oil, and Turkey Hunger
The most dangerous form of cooking known to man is widely considered to be cutting and cleaning the fugu blowfish. It takes a chef ten years to finish the training required to be certified to serve the dish. The final exam is easy: the initiate prepares a fugu and eats it himself. If he can skillfully slice it up without exposing the delicious meat to the deadly tetrodotoxin in the rest of the fish, he gets his license. If he screws up he dies a horrible death by drowning without water as his brain loses the ability to command the lungs to breathe and the master fugu chef announces a new opening for an apprentice.
Preparing fugu is the most deadly culinary art around. Deep-frying turkey is said to be the second most deadly.
What else can be said about a procedure involving flame and hot oil that propels even professional firefighters into the emergency room with horrid burns? That sends panicked family into the streets as it engulfs their house in smoke and ruin? That uses equipment that has been know to explode minus simple precautions, sending searing-hot contents outward like so much Cajun napalm?
And yet... I'm madly in love with this!
It was two years ago, beginning with a trial-run the week before Thanksgiving, that I deep-fried my first turkey. That one came out great, save for being more than a little burned on the outside. Maybe 15 birds later and I've gotten pretty darned good at both marinading it, then bathing it in Perdition's flame. 'Course, it took me three years after first hearing about it, and then a TON of study into how to do this - what to do and what NOT to do - before finally getting up the courage to take a stab at it. I'll never go back to basted turkey again if I can help it: fried turkey is so amazingly juicy - and with a REAL taste finally, which I never knew turkey even really had - that in my book it's the ONLY way to prepare turkey. Despite the risk of injury and destruction that comes with it. But if you don't mind taking a few common-sense precautions and be patient throughout the process, it's really a very simple and relatively safe thing to do. Just don't approach it as a routine means of cooking: treat each bird as a unique work of art. That's all there really is to it.
Two full-sized turkeys this year. I started marinading them early morning the day before yesterday. For REAL good ideally you wanna try to start juicin' 'em up 36 hours before frying. If that's not possible, at least somewhere around 24 hours. It yields a lot better bird than doing it a few hours before.
(Excerpt) Read more at theknightshift.blogspot.com ...
They say that with fugu, if it's been prepared correctly your toes and fingertips begin to tingle for a few minutes after eating it. If it's prepared wrongly, your toes and fingertips begin to tingle for a few minutes after eating it. Now that's what I call a fun dinner.
Allstate used to have a commercial..very funny..sayign they got several thousands claims each Thanksgiving for damaged caused by fires started by people/idiots frying turkeys with improper gear..
I'm looking forward to my first fried turkey this year, prepared by someone else and not at my house.
And then....
Fugu poisoning brings a terrible death, as the fully-conscious victim is gradually paralyzed--losing the ability to talk, losing use of his arms and legs, and eventually becoming unable to breathe. Death occurs anywhere within twenty minutes to twenty hours.
http://www.mwtb.org/html/201540.html
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