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After Thanksgiving Dinner,
a most excellent hash may be made thus: Pick meat off turkey bones, shred it in small bits, add dressing and pieces of light biscuit cut up fine, mix together and put into dripping-pan, pour over any gravy that was left, add water to thoroughly moisten, but not enough to make it sloppy; place in a hot oven for twenty minutes, and, when eaten, all will agree that the turkey is better this time than it was at first; or warm the remnants of the turkey over after the style of escaloped oysters (first a layer of bread-crumbs, then minced turkey, and so on); or add an egg or two and make nice breakfast croquettes. The common error in heating over meats of all kinds is putting (361) into a cold skillet, and cooking a long time. This second cooking is more properly only heating, and should be quickly done. All such dishes should be served hot with some sort of tart jelly. Always save a can of currant juice (after filling jelly cups and glasses), from which to make jelly in the winter, and it will taste as fresh and delicious as when made in its season.
Three ways to use up a roast turkey, written for a household that expected to eat the bird for several days. The instructions are loose by design; the useful part is the principle stated near the end.
- The hinge: heat fast, do not re-cookThe recipe's own point is the one worth keeping. Cooked turkey put into a cold pan over low heat for a long stretch dries out and turns stringy. Get the oven or pan hot first and heat the mixture through quickly, then serve at once.
- "A hot oven"Probably somewhere in the range of a modern 400-450F; nineteenth-century oven descriptions were not standardised and varied from cook to cook. Twenty minutes at that heat should be enough to heat through and brown the top of a shallow pan of moistened hash.
- Dripping-panThe shallow rectangular pan that sat under a roast. Any shallow metal roasting pan or a large rimmed baking sheet with sides works; you want surface area for browning, not a deep casserole.
- "Light biscuit" and "dressing"Biscuit here means a soft American biscuit or roll, raised with yeast or with soda/baking powder, not a cracker or a sweet biscuit. Dressing is the stuffing, whether or not it was cooked inside the bird.
- "After the style of escaloped oysters"That means a layered gratin: buttered crumbs, minced turkey, crumbs again, moistened with gravy or milk and baked until the top is crisp. Dot each crumb layer with butter or it bakes dry.
- The croquettesAn egg or two will bind minced turkey only if the mixture is fairly dry and thoroughly chilled before shaping; most modern versions add a stiff thick white sauce as well. Chill the shaped croquettes before they go into fat, or they break apart.
- Leftover handlingStrip the meat off the carcass the day it is served and refrigerate it, along with the gravy and stuffing. Use within three or four days and heat these dishes through to 165F.
- Yield and servingNo quantities are given at all; the hash is scaled to whatever is left. Reckon roughly equal volumes of shredded meat and bread or dressing, with gravy and water added a little at a time. The tart jelly is not decorative here, it is the acid the dish needs.
"Fragments" was a chapter heading familiar from American household manuals of the period, and Buckeye Cookery treats leftovers as a test of the housekeeper's skill rather than an embarrassment. A roast turkey was a large investment for a farm or small-town family, and the book assumes the carcass will yield hash, a scalloped dish and croquettes. The remark about saving a can of currant juice for winter jelly belongs to the same economy: currant juice was drawn off in summer, and jelly made from stored juice let a household put a tart accompaniment beside reheated meat in November, when nothing fresh and sour was to be had. The confidence that "the turkey is better this time than it was at first" is a common note in these books, and not merely thrift talk -- a well-browned hash with gravy does carry more flavor than a slice of cold breast.