The Science and Physics of Deep Frying: A Kentucky Fried Turkey Recipe

As we begin our journey to create the perfect Kentucky fried turkey, it's essential to understand the science and physics behind this cooking method. In this article, we'll explore the key components of deep frying, including the type of oil, temperature control, and the importance of not overcooking the meat.

To start, let's talk about the different types of oils used for deep frying. We've experimented with various combinations in the past, but our most successful results have come from using a blend of old and new oil. The old oil helps to jumpstart the reactions we want to encourage, resulting in a darker crust and crunchier texture.

Now that we have our oil selection settled, let's move on to temperature control. A crucial aspect of deep frying is maintaining the optimal temperature. We aim for a range of 370°F (188°C) for this recipe, which may seem high, but trust us, it's necessary for achieving that perfect balance between juiciness and crunch.

Our initial attempts with a higher temperature resulted in burnt pieces, so we've adjusted our target to around 350°F (177°C). This lower temperature still allows us to achieve the desired results while minimizing the risk of overcooking. We'll also be using a combination of cooking times and temperatures to ensure that each piece of turkey is cooked just right.

As we begin the frying process, it's essential to maintain a steady hand and monitor our temperature closely. The oil needs time to heat up and stabilize before we can start adding pieces of meat. With patience and attention, we'll be rewarded with perfectly seared turkeys that are both crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

We've experimented with various seasoning blends in the past, but for this recipe, we're sticking to a simple yet effective combination of herbs and spices. This blend not only adds flavor but also helps to create a crunchy crust by providing a solid foundation for the breading.

Now that our turkey is fried to perfection, it's time to assemble the finishing touches. We'll be using a glass of wine – yes, you read that right! A dry white wine can add a depth of flavor and help to balance out the richness of the dish. For those who prefer something stronger, we recommend pairing with a whiskey to complement the bold flavors.

As we take our first bite, it's clear that this recipe is a game-changer for turkey lovers everywhere. The result is nothing short of iconic – a dish that's both familiar and innovative at the same time. We can't wait to share this recipe with you, our loyal fans, and explore the world of Kentucky fried turkey together.

But don't just take our word for it! Let's take a closer look at some of the key components of this recipe and how they contribute to its success.

First, we have the buttermilk. A crucial component in this recipe, the acidity of the buttermilk helps to break down the proteins in the meat, making it tender and juicy. We're using it as a marinade to infuse the turkey with flavor and tenderness.

Next up is the dredging process. This step is essential for creating that perfect crust – crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. By using a combination of flour, spices, and herbs, we can create a seasoning blend that not only adds flavor but also helps to seal in the juices.

Now, let's talk about the importance of not overcooking the meat. This is where temperature control comes into play. If we're too aggressive with our heat, we risk drying out the turkey and losing its juiciness. By adjusting our cooking time and temperature, we can achieve that perfect balance between cooked-through meat and crunchy crust.

As we move on to the final stages of preparation, it's essential to remember that patience is a virtue when it comes to deep frying. We'll be letting the oil recover for a few minutes before adding more pieces of turkey, allowing us to maintain a steady hand and ensure that each piece is cooked just right.

Now, let's take a closer look at some of the key ingredients used in this recipe.

First, we have the chicken (or rather, our Kentucky fried turkey!). We're using 4-5 pounds of boneless, skinless breast meat for this recipe. Make sure to handle it gently and keep it refrigerated until we're ready to begin cooking.

Next up is the dredging mixture. This blend consists of flour, spices, and herbs, all carefully combined to create a seasoning that's both flavorful and crunchy. We'll be applying this mixture to the turkey in stages, making sure to coat each piece evenly.

Now, let's talk about some of the key tips and tricks for achieving success with this recipe.

First, it's essential to maintain a steady hand when working with hot oil. We'll be using a thermometer to monitor our temperature closely, ensuring that we don't get too aggressive with our heat.

Second, don't be afraid to experiment! We've had some incredible successes by adjusting our seasoning blend or cooking time. Feel free to try new combinations and see what works best for you.

Finally, remember to stay patient and attentive during the frying process. With a little practice, you'll be producing perfectly seared turkeys in no time!

As we conclude this article on the science and physics of deep frying, it's clear that this recipe is a game-changer for turkey lovers everywhere. By understanding the key components of deep frying – temperature control, seasoning blends, and cooking techniques – we can create a dish that's both familiar and innovative at the same time.

So go ahead, give it a try, and join us on our journey to explore the world of Kentucky fried turkey!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthanksgiving's coming usually that means roast turkey we're gonna take everything that everyone loves about kentucky fried chicken that crunch that crisp that like just juiciness and we're gonna do that to thanksgiving turkey basically give me a nice little mashup right so not a whole turkey and not kentucky fried chicken kentucky fried turkey so we've got this whole process it's broken up in a few steps you can do some of the steps days in advance hours in advance there's nothing here that's last minute you can have this whole thing done holding warm crunchy juicy ready for thanksgiving we've got this whole thing just like unlock free it's going to be a really really amazing kentucky fried turkey this year this year we're going to go with kind of like the butterball-ish kind of turkey good news is you can go with any turkey you want so if you've got like a friend down the street who raises turkeys go for that one shot at yourself congratulations those free-range turkeys they're skinny they're skinny there's kind of two goals here one we're going to separate white meat dark meat the other goal we actually need to take the skin off just got a better crust better like crunch and eating experience if we get rid of the skin we're not going to throw it away we're gonna put it in the zoo we're gonna put it in stock you can chop it up and put it in biscuits whatever you wanna do with it we've got a lot of different butchery videos for turkey on chef steps now at this point if you haven't seen the occupatory one go check it out it's insane okay so if you buy a whole turkey and butcher yourself this is what you're going to end up with so this is all like the sauce stuff like from this side over you know the wingtip skin little tail a couple bones neck giblets and then all the carcass so here's the part that's gonna make our kentucky fried turkey though but this is it starts right here this is ready for cooking we're gonna bag it up cook it sous vide and then after this we're gonna cut it up into 24 piece kentucky fried turkey bucket i already made a mess already butchered it so i'm gonna season everything right here we're gonna use our kentucky fried chicken seasoning that kyle kind of reverse engineered so recipes on chefs.com duh i don't need to dig into this too much a little seasoning i'll give you another tip and trick demo here's what happens when you pinch close here look that's like one inch here's you know six inches here's one foot check it out same thing a little more even right easy we're gonna put the thighs in a bag we're gonna put the breasts in the bag and then all these like bone-in things we're gonna put in a different bag that gives you more control on you know pulling something out sooner or later too doing a bunch of r d on souby turkey at modern cuisine years ago and it never really occurred to me i was doing like short cooks you know low temperature and like man it's still so dry and then i do really long cooks hot temperature and it's really dry and it's pretty rare i think pretty uncommon you find a cut of meat that's super lean and super tough it's kind of like a brisket or something but brisket can be really fatty too like there's not much even collagen in breast meat which means it benefits from a really low and controlled temp like a rare temperature like 130 140 something like that fahrenheit for a long period of time that way any juice that's in there you keep it but basically that's what we're doing here so we've got our few different bags of turkey cooked they're ready if you want to nail the temperatures and the textures just right lots lots more on chef steps you can cook everything the same time you can cook everything a little bit different time if you want it to be real perfect but again check that on site lots lots of information there it smells delicious and it's super tender while it's hot i'm going to take the meat out of the bag and put it on a tray and then we're going to chill it taking it out while it's hot is going to dry out the surface which is going to give you a better bond when we go into the flour the dredging and the frying right and it's going to give you a better crust too so part of this is desiccating that surface a little bit i'm going to keep this for gravy and sauce each bag is going to have a little bit of that you'll probably be ready for dredging in about an hour but you can also do it like a day or two in advance so this is one of those opportunities between the steps you can kind of move time around like that so i'm gonna pop in the fridge so we've got these big chunks here and if you really want maximum juiciness and crunchiness and everybody's getting a little bit of dark meat white meat and you want to fry quickly and evenly that's where portioning comes in handy right so everything's basically about the same thickness or dimensions and again this is you know was a 12 pound 14 pound turkey because we're going for like 24 pieces you know once you fry this thing once you bread it dredge it and fry it it's going to be a lot bigger and i want my pieces to fry evenly i'm going to turn each one of these into like six pieces how simple is that they're portioned they're ready for dredging home stretch almost on our way to front we're taking a traditional dredging process right so you've got dry wet dry then it goes right into the fryer and we're gonna tweak it level it up with a few other additions we're gonna do cornstarch for extra extra crispiness and lightness we're going to do baking soda for even more lightness because it's going to react to the acid right and we're going to get even a lacier crisp um it's also going to make the crust darker and give us like a more complex mallard reaction it's gonna be tastier and then we're gonna also add some trisol trisol is going to actually help it stay less oily and it's gonna help it stay crispier longer in addition to that it's going to keep the crust closer to the meat meat crunch meat crunch every little bite let's get going let's actually dredge this stuff and fry this stuff and make some turkey you can under dry mix it but you can't over dry mix it you know i'm gonna take some of this and just keep it on the side of the bowl if we want more we just add more you know what i mean ah it's the moment of truth this is when we make it fried we've got our dry mix got our meat got our oil on standby we need some buttermilk first things first take our nice little bits get them in here get them nice and coated and we're gonna do a really good job trying to dust off extra in another minute but i want the dry this first bit of dry to stick to it for you know a good few minutes or so so let's get all these pieces in here i don't have to be precious about this part i just want to make sure it's all coated i love the way flour feels so cozy in here before we put it in the buttermilk we want to like make sure each piece gets nice and clean as far as that flour goes because if you throw it in here and you got like big chunks what's gonna happen is big piles of flour is not gonna hydrate and then it's gonna come off later even in the fryer you know even your mouth not only when you have like kind of raw flour but it just won't stick that's when it starts to slide off so this first bit is kind of your glue layer i know we've been talking about turkey this whole time but need i remind you all these amazing tips and tricks you can do the exact same thing with chicken to give it a little shake and a pat buttermilk again this is the part sitting in here now it's starting to hydrate even more that baking soda is going to start reacting as soon as it gets in there i'm trying to clean this all up into like one big step but you can do six pieces at a time you know everybody has big trays big giant bowls and all that sort of stuff you know so but i would do like you know six seven eight pieces fry fry them six seven eight pieces fry them as long as it's coated and let it hang out for a second one of the things kyle kind of sorted out when he's frying the chicken is take a little bit of the wet and fold it into the dry now that we're at this stage and that'll give you more of those like craggly dry bits so it's not like a nice perfect even coating you'll have more of those like waves and crackles right kind of like cutting butter into pie dough and you can work those flakes so get some like buttermilk in there you wouldn't want to pour it you know because each one of these little like raindrops is hitting its own little spot of batter oh yeah baby you can feel them hitting your fingers like all these little lumps those are gonna be nice little lumpy crunchy crunchy crunchy you got my little flower play pen i'm gonna keep some flour off to the side over here start with these big guys so right out of the buttermilk right into flour same thing just keep going okay a few more minutes here and we're going into the fryer all right 370 degrees got our turkey over here got our little drip tray over here got a spider this is a huge pot not everybody has a huge dutch oven cast iron pot this big i get it if you got a smaller one try a couple less pieces at a time you know not a big deal before we get going we've got a whole video that you got to check out um it's like the science and physics of deep frying especially around chicken one of the things we talk about is new oil versus old oil so from some of the past fryer trials we have this is just you know a little bit of old oil and that'll kind of jump start a lot of the reactions we want to help get a darker crust right again more chips up without further ado i'm gonna start frying here we go oh beautiful i'm watching my temperature over here i've got four or five pieces couple big ones with those drums i've gone from like 370 to 350. i'm gonna not drop any more pieces in right now this is basically like a sear fry we're not frying from raw right it's already cooked it's already juicy i want to keep all that juice in the meat so i don't want to overcook it so the goal here is just to heat up the meat just enough in that two three minutes to get that nice deep dark craggly crust on the outside so got to get rid of all the water in the crust and then get some caramelization get some mild reaction in addition to that without overcooking the meat that's where we're going for here so you know two three minutes should be golden looking pretty good i can already feel getting crunchy oh craggly some oils at 340. that's normal don't panic but if i put two three more pieces in there you might even drop below 300 might take a lot longer to heat up and that's when you start to get soggy you know soggy crust so don't over crowd your fryer but this is where this recipe is like so great you can fry four pieces let them hang out let the oil recover fry few more have a glass of wine have some whiskey dude that's already so crunchy i'm already tricked it feels like kentucky fried chicken but it's turkey nice color nice crackles we've got our little seasoning blend here while it's nice and hot and like a little greasy you can get a little bit more on the outside i'm excited to dig into that that's looking pretty good it's like iconic iconic for this brand new thing it's already iconic oh yeah resist the urge to eat it right now give it a couple minutes okay i'm gonna cheat and eat this nugget look at a little craggly guy that's a total i can't believe it's not chicken i think you og folks your og chef subs fans are going to like this one trisol is worth having in your pantry good job kyle and nick that's a spot on recipe we've gotten all the way to the end of our kentucky fried turkey journey from butchery to cooking to the whole dredging breading and frying and now this turkey's been hanging out for you know an hour or so right now it's cooled off you know from here i just kind of want to like dig into it show you guys like did we get to where we wanted to end up i think let's see which one oh i tricked myself that's a wing i want to show you a breast lightning there we go you can actually see like how juicy it is juicy juicy juicy and i can even see juice right on the surface there but right on the outside of that it's crunchy we pulled it off that's so good it's amazing you know how many years mankind has suffered through traditional roast turkey at the dinner table and now you don't have to anymore because you can kentucky fry your turkey every year from here on out forever this is uh the chef steps nashville hot a little different than like some of the natural hot which is just like chili oil basically also recipe on chef is that too hot the chef behind the camera and seemed like dawn put that in his mouth it's pretty hot i'm scared but it smells so good it smells sweet it's sweet whatever i'm gonna try it actually am i going to like really regret this cup this is definitely like the centerpiece for me this year super juicy super tender super crunchy lasts a long time once you're done you can move time around it's super convenient this is it kentucky fried turkey man you\n"