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To Braise A Turkey
First prepare the following vegetables by peeling and washing: two onions, two small carrots, one turnip; cut them in thin slices, with a little celery, two bay leaves and a few sprigs of parsley. Lay the vegetables on clean sheets of paper and pour over two tablespoonfuls of olive oil. The turkey must be trussed. Cover breast with thin slices of bacon and lay the back of the bird on the vegetables; cut a few slices of lemon and place on the breast, to keep it white; tie the paper round with a stout string; then place it to roast three hours. In the regular braise pan, or oven roaster, it will not need the paper, but must have the vegetables under it and the lemon on the breast, as above.
A barded, paper-wrapped bird set on a bed of aromatics — closer to what the French call en papillote than to a modern braise. The original assumes a coal range and a cook who knows her oven, so the two things it never states are the temperature and the size of the turkey.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. For a wrapped bird on vegetables, around 325F is a reasonable modern setting; the paper and bacon protect the breast, so there is no need to start hot.
- Three hours means a mid-sized birdThree hours at 325F suits roughly a 10–12 lb turkey. A 16–20 lb bird will need four hours or more, and the time should never be the deciding factor.
- DonenessCook to 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, clear of the bone. This is the one point the original cannot help with, and the only reliable test.
- The paperThe paper called for would have been a heavier kitchen paper than a modern thin sheet. Parchment tied with butcher's twine does the same job; foil will also work but seals more tightly and steams the skin more.
- "Braise pan, or oven roaster"A braisière was a deep pan with a close-fitting, often recessed lid that held hot coals. Any heavy covered roaster or Dutch oven with a lid stands in for it; the point is a closed, humid environment rather than dry roasting.
- Bacon and lemonThe bacon is barding, not seasoning — thin slices of unsmoked streaky or fatback are closer to the original than heavily smoked, sugar-cured supermarket bacon. The lemon keeps the breast pale, which mattered when a white-fleshed bird was the mark of good cooking; leave it off if you would rather have colour.
- BrowningWrapped and covered, the skin will finish soft and grey. Unwrap for the last 20–30 minutes, raise the heat to 425F and baste to get any colour at all.
- The vegetables are gravyOnion, carrot, turnip, celery, bay and parsley under the bird are a mirepoix. Once the turkey is out and resting, deglaze the pan, simmer the vegetables in the juices and strain — otherwise the best part of the dish goes in the bin.
- YieldA 10–12 lb turkey handled this way serves 8–10, with the resting period (30 minutes, loosely covered) worth as much to the texture as anything in the cooking.
Braising a turkey rather than roasting it belongs to the professional, French-influenced kitchen that shaped English and American cookbooks through the nineteenth century: the braisière, with its sunken lid to hold live coals above as well as below, cooked large joints and birds in their own steam over a bed of aromatics. The lemon laid on the breast is a period marker in itself — whiteness of flesh was prized, and cooks went to some trouble to keep a bird pale, wrapping it in paper, larding it with fat bacon and dressing it with acid. By the time this book appeared, that older technique was being explained for households with a closed cast-iron range and a covered "oven roaster" rather than a hearth and a braising pan, which is why the recipe gives the same method twice, once with paper and once without. Turkey itself, native to the Americas and in European kitchens since the sixteenth century, had settled firmly into its role as the large festive bird, which is exactly the sort of joint a braise was designed for.