Gordon Ramsay has achieved widespread fame by operating several Michelin-starred restaurants and hosting television shows. Subsequently, he’s become a public source for culinary advice, all delivered in his signature no-nonsense style. Perhaps you’ve heard his tips on how to test steak doneness or craft delicious dessert pizza, for example. Yet for an especially impassioned nugget of culinary wisdom, tune in when Ramsay instructs how not to do something.
While chatting on an episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the chef got especially fired up over how to cook a turkey. Ramsay revealed his dislike of when people fry the bird, noting an unpalatably dry consistency as a result. Instead, roasting is his go-to, especially if supplemented with an additional fat like butter or bacon.
In fact, the chef offers a recipe on the Gordon Ramsay website showcasing such a technique — he cooks the bird in an oven with an herb butter. After blending butter with aromatics like lemon, garlic, and parsley, this fatty ingredient is lathered both inside and outside the skin, thereby crisping and flavoring simultaneously. Then, for assured juiciness, Ramsay takes an extra step: He covers the turkey with bacon 15 minutes into the roasting process. Such a fatty combination of butter and bacon ensures a delectably moist, flavorful, and delicious result.
Frying Turkey Comes With The Risk Of Explosion
Chef Gordon Ramsay isn’t alone in cautioning against frying whole birds. Come Thanksgiving, videos of the preparation style start circulating online — and they are not typically instructional in nature. Instead, clips evince how frying turkey can lead to some truly dramatic cooking disasters involving large fireballs and even house fires.
Indeed, more gravely than just dry meat, this cooking method comes with the risk of explosions. When there’s abundant water contained in the bird, the heated oil can turn liquid into steam in only seconds, and this can violently force oil out of the fryer and cause a fire. The danger is amplified when the bird is frozen, although simple mistakes like adding too much oil to the vessel or turning the heat too high can also cause the same reaction.
With proper technique, it is a viable preparation style; adjusting for proper temperature and space, you can deep fry a turkey for crispy skin. However, since a roasted turkey rewards with a better consistency anyway, this is yet another reason to forgo the preparation style Ramsay isn’t fond of — there’s simply more dependable stability in the oven.
