Mmmm good wild turkey recipes
Deep-fried Wild Turkey

Picture a grand wild turkey as the centerpiece of your Fourth of July feast. Its warm, golden skin promises juicy meat on the inside. The traditional view has been that no turkey is fit for the table without its skin fully intact. After the hunt, each turkey was laboriously plucked by hunters or hunt camp cooks.

The choice of skinning or plucking a wild turkey depends largely on the method of cooking the bird. For the types of cooking that tend to dry out the flesh of the bird, like the roasted turkey that commonly graces our Thanksgiving tables, the moisture-sealing skin should be left on.

Plucking rather than skinning also helps when you freeze the bird by reducing the risk of freezer burn.

Yet other cooking treatments, like deep-frying, keep a skinless turkey moist and tender. Since skinning the bird removes much of the cholesterol and fat that tend to concentrate in the skin, you can afford to indulge yourself in the Southern tradition of a deep-fried turkey on Thanksgiving.

Here are some tips for deep frying turkey from the National Wild Turkey Federation's Wild About Turkey cookbook:

Always make sure the turkey is thawed completely.

* Clean the turkey in the same manner you would for roasting.

* Do not stuff the turkey when deep-frying.

* Either inject the turkey with liquid seasoning or rub dry seasonings inside and out. Some examples include hot pepper sauce, black pepper, Italian dressing, Cajun seasonings and paprika.

* To determine how much oil to use in the deep fryer, fill the pot with water and lower the turkey into it. (Water should cover the turkey without spilling over.) Remove the turkey and measure the amount of water left in the pot. Discard the water and fill the pot with oil.

* Heat the oil to at least 310 degrees before adding the turkey.

* Skinless turkey should be cooked three minutes per pound, while turkey with skin should be cooked at 3 1/2 minutes per pound.

* Let the turkey cool for 20 to 30 minutes before carving.