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Marbled Turkey, Pressed
Prepare the turkey in the usual way for pressing. Keep the dark and white meat separate, putting first a layer of dark meat and then light in the mould. Cut into slices with a sharp knife and serve with currant jelly.
The recipe assumes you already know how to press a turkey, which no modern cook does. Everything that matters is in the phrase "in the usual way," so here is what that meant.
- What "prepared for pressing" meansWhat "prepared for pressing" usually meant -- The bird was simmered gently in barely enough water to cover, generally with an onion, a few peppercorns and a little salt, until the meat parted from the bone; for a bird of about 10 lb allow something in the region of 2½ to 3 hours and judge by the meat rather than the clock. The meat is then pulled off while warm, skin and gristle discarded, and the cooking liquid boiled down hard until it is syrupy and sets when a spoonful is chilled on a saucer.
- The hinge: reduce the stock far enoughPressed turkey holds together on gelatin from the bones and skin, not on binder. If the stock is not reduced to the point where a cold spoonful is firmly jellied, the loaf will crumble at the knife. Test a chilled spoonful rather than trusting a volume; if it will not set, about a tablespoon of powdered gelatin per two cups of stock is the usual insurance.
- The mould and the pressAny straight-sided loaf pan works. Pack the layers tightly, spoon over just enough reduced stock to fill the gaps, lay a piece of parchment on top, then a board or second pan, and weight it with two or three tins. The weight is what makes the slices marble cleanly instead of shredding.
- Keeping the layers distinctSeason the dark and white meat separately before layering and keep the pieces in fairly large flakes rather than shredding them. Small shreds bleed into each other under pressure and the marbling disappears.
- Chilling timeTwelve hours in the refrigerator, overnight, is right. Turn out by dipping the base briefly in hot water. The book was written when this went into a cold larder; do it in the refrigerator, and do not leave the pressed loaf at room temperature for more than a couple of hours at serving.
- Slicing"A sharp knife" is not idle advice — a long thin blade, wiped between cuts, and slices no thinner than a quarter inch. Serve cold.
- Yield and the jellyA 10 lb turkey gives a loaf that slices for eight to ten as a cold main course. Currant jelly is the period partner; any sharp red fruit jelly does the same job of cutting the richness.
Pressed meats were the answer to a problem every large-household kitchen faced before refrigeration: a whole boiled fowl that had to be eaten cold over several days. Boning, packing and weighting the meat in its own jellied stock produced something that sliced neatly, travelled to a picnic or a buffet, and kept better than loose cold cuts. The "marbled" version is presentation — turkey has a marked contrast between breast and leg meat, and alternating the two gives a cut surface that looks deliberate rather than like leftovers. Cookbooks of this kind are full of such made dishes, and the terseness of the instructions here suggests an author who expected "pressing" to need no more explanation than "boiling." Currant jelly was a common accompaniment to cold poultry and game in American cookery well into the twentieth century.