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Broiled Tenderloin of Turkey
Cut slices from the breast of a raw turkey, sprinkle a small quantity of salt over the slices, place on a double broiler and broil slowly until of a light brown, basting very often with butter while cooking. When done it is as tender as a partridge.
A short, useful instruction for turning raw turkey breast into something like a cutlet, from a period when a whole bird was butchered at home rather than bought in parts. The technique is closer to modern pan-grilling than to broiling under a gas element.
- What a "double broiler" isA hinged wire gridiron that clamps the meat between two grates, held over coals and flipped as a unit. A ridged cast-iron grill pan or an outdoor grill gives the same result; a modern overhead broiler works but browns only one side at a time.
- Cut thicknessThe original says only "slices." Cut across the grain of the breast at about 1/2 inch, or butterfly and flatten thicker pieces to an even thickness so the outside does not dry before the centre is done.
- "Broil slowly" is relativeTurkey breast is very lean, so moderate heat and frequent turning are right, but the total time is short: 3 to 4 minutes a side for half-inch slices. Cook to 165F at the centre and no further.
- The basting is the hingeThe butter is not seasoning, it is insurance against a cut of meat with almost no intramarbling. Brush or spoon it on every time you turn the slices; if the butter is browning too fast on the pan, lower the heat rather than stopping the basting.
- Season beyond the saltA period recipe stops at salt. Pepper, and a squeeze of lemon or a spoonful of the pan butter poured over at the table, cost nothing and suit the mild meat.
- YieldA whole turkey breast half of roughly 2 lb yields six to eight slices, enough for four. Any breast slices you do not cook keep two days refrigerated.
- What to do with the rest of the birdThis recipe assumes you now have a breastless raw turkey on the board. The legs and thighs want long moist cooking, and the carcass makes stock the same day.
The comparison at the end is the point of the recipe: "as tender as a partridge" held up a game bird as the standard of tenderness, a comparison a reader who still saw wild birds at market would have understood at once. Turkey in American cookbooks of this period is most often roasted whole, so a recipe that carves the raw breast into cutlets is a less usual treatment. The word "tenderloin" here is applied to the breast fillet by analogy with the tenderloin of beef and pork; the same usage survives in "turkey tenderloin" on supermarket labels today.