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Boned Turkey (Bone and stuff as in preceding)
Bone and stuff as in preceding recipe, roll tight in a strong, clean cloth, tie with tape in center and near the ends, and fasten ends firmly with strong twine, taking care to make the roll compact and perfectly secure; place in a rich stock, prepared by putting the bones in cold water with herbs, an onion peeled and stuck with ten cloves, and a sliced carrot and turnip, bringing to a boil, and skimming it until clear (if not enough to cover, add more boiling water), and boil four or five hours, take up, remove cloth, wash it in cold water, and replace turkey in it as before, place it between two platters under a heavy weight, and let stand over night to cool; strain the stock in which it was boiled, in the morning remove all fat, and put stock over the fire; add to it two ounces gelatine dissolved in a pint of cold water, and clarify as in general directions for "Soups." Strain through flannel until perfectly clear, pour it into two shallow molds, color one dark brown with caramel, and cool until the jelly is firm; place turkey on a dish and garnish with the jelly cut in fanciful shapes; or first place the turkey on a dish, and pour the jelly over it.
This is a galantine: a boned, stuffed turkey poached in its own bone stock, pressed cold, and served with chopped aspic. The technique is sound, but the temperatures and the gelatine need translating.
- The hinge: roll it tightA loose roll cooks unevenly and slices into a ragged spiral. Wrap the stuffed bird in a doubled sheet of damp muslin or cheesecloth, roll it as tightly as a sausage, and tie at the center and both ends with cotton kitchen twine before knotting the cloth ends. The "tape" of the original is plain cotton binding tape, sold in fabric shops; twine works as well.
- Poach, do not boilFour or five hours at a rolling boil will shred the roll and squeeze it dry. Hold the stock at 175-180F, barely trembling, and cook to an internal temperature of 165F at the center of the roll. The recipe gives no bird size, and a boned, rolled bird may reach that well before the four or five hours specified, so go by a thermometer rather than the clock.
- Chill it in the refrigeratorDo not leave a cooked meat roll pressed between platters on the counter overnight, as written. Press it in the refrigerator under a weight of two or three pounds; the shape sets just as well and the meat stays out of the danger zone.
- Two ounces of gelatineNineteenth-century gelatine varied in strength and was not graded as consistently as modern product, so the quantity is hard to translate exactly. Two ounces is eight quarter-ounce envelopes, which will set roughly a gallon of stock quite stiffly today; for two shallow molds of aspic, three to four envelopes bloomed in cold water is nearer the mark. A well-made turkey bone stock will also set partly on its own.
- ClarifyingThe "general directions for Soups" mean an egg-white raft: whisk two or three egg whites with their crushed shells into the cold, degreased stock, bring it slowly to a bare simmer without stirring, let the raft form, then ladle the liquid through a flannel or several layers of damp cheesecloth.
- Caramel for colorThe dark half of the jelly is tinted with burnt sugar, not with anything sweet in effect: sugar cooked to a deep mahogany, taken off the heat, and let down with a little hot water. A teaspoon or so tints a mold. Bottled gravy browning does the same job.
- The onion and clovesAn onion stuck with ten cloves is an oignon clouté; it perfumes the stock and is fished out before clarifying. Ten cloves is a lot for a small pot -- scale down if you are making less than a gallon of stock.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no bird size; a boned turkey of ten or twelve pounds would serve roughly sixteen to twenty as a cold dish. Slice it across the roll, thin, and serve the aspic either chopped and heaped around the platter or cut into diamonds and rounds. It keeps three or four days refrigerated, whole and wrapped.
What Buckeye Cookery calls boned turkey is a galantine, a preparation associated with French professional kitchens. The name is usually traced to Old French galatine, a jellied sauce, and thence to the same Latin root as gelatine; a derivation from galine, a fowl, is also offered but is disputed. Boning a bird whole, stuffing it into its own skin, poaching it and serving it cold under a glaze of clear aspic was a set piece of nineteenth-century cold-table cookery, the sort of thing more likely to appear on a sideboard at a party supper than at an ordinary family dinner. Its presence in an Ohio household manual of the 1870s is telling: Buckeye Cookery was addressed to women without professional staff, and it sets this multi-day, two-mold, caramel-tinted showpiece alongside much plainer poultry dishes. The instruction to reserve the bones for the poaching stock, and then to turn that stock into the garnish, is the practical thrift that runs through the whole book.