Turkey is traditional fare at Thanksgiving but there are some mighty untraditional ways of cooking it.

Nowadays, not everyone cooks the traditional oven roasted turkey. The advent of cooking bags ensure an evenly cooked bird that is moist throughout. Turkey on the grill is a novel way to prepare your bird. You can add the sweet and smoky taste of mesquite wood chips to turn up the taste of a tired traditional.

And although it isn’t Thanksgiving in some families unless the turkey is deep-fried, about 100 injuries a year and several house fires are attributed to this method.

Some safety tips for frying your turkey include:

*Make sure your turkey is thoroughly thawed. A frozen turkey dropped into hot oil with produce a plume of steam that could injure people standing nearby.

*Lower the turkey into the fryer s-l-o-w-l-y. Use a broomstick or long rod on which to suspend the turkey and lower it from a safe distance. Never stand over the fryer when you put the turkey in.

*Don’t overfill the fryer with oil. You can use the water-displacement method to determine how much oil you need. Place the turkey in the fryer and fill with water to about 1 or 2 inches below the top of the turkey. Make a line to mark this as the amount of oil needed to fry your turkey. Thoroughly dry the pot of water before adding oil.

*Don’t fry near flammable objects. (This is one you should have already thought of.)

For more information on all the ways to prepare a delicious bird for Thanksgiving, click here.