METAIRIE (WGNO)— For the past twenty years, it is a Thanksgiving tradition that the Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club fries turkeys, and they fry over a thousand—setting a world record for most fried turkeys.
WGNO’s Kenny Lopez shows us how they’ve got it all down to a science.
It is a huge turkey frying operation with the Krewe of Carrollton frying up 1,052 turkeys with the Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club for the Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club’s annual Thanksgiving fundraiser.
“This is a huge labor of love for our group,” Anthony Dinatelle with the Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club said.
These volunteers put a lot of hard work into frying these birds.
The first step is cleaning the birds, tying up their legs, and then injecting the special secret seasoning into the legs and breasts. Chef Susan Spicer came up with the special seasoning for these turkeys.
They have 20 pots where they fry about 60 turkeys at a time for 50 minutes until the birds are a golden brown.
“Once they are taken out of the pots, they are brought to cool off for 30 to 45 minutes,” he said.
Finally the turkeys are taken out of the fryers and they are placed on a cooling rack first then they go off to another cooling spot.
“We will take the temperatures here. We really need them below 80 degrees before they are boxed. If they are too hot then they will dry out,” he said.
They’ve even set the Guinness World Record for “World’s Largest Turkey Fry.”
“We did just over 1,000 last year so we added 30 or 40 turkeys more than last year,” he said.
Finally these turkeys are ready to trot to your Thanksgiving dinner table for you to gobble up!
They are all sold out, but make sure you pre-order your turkeys next year.
100 percent of the money raised from the turkey fry goes to Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club’s Rewards for Reading Program that benefits Jefferson Parish Elementary and Middle School students.
The program gives kids bikes, Ipads, and other prizes when they’ve read a certain number of books.
For more information about Dawn Busters Kiwanis Club, click HERE.