Home › The Principles of Cookery › Turkey, Boiled, and Stuffed with Tongue
Turkey, Boiled, and Stuffed with Tongue
Take a small boiled pickled tongue. Cut off the root entirely, leaving only a small portion of the fat. Pluck, draw, singe, and bone a turkey (see TURKEY, BONING OF), and cut off the legs, but not the wings. Nearly fill the inside with good veal forcemeat, push the tongue into the centre of the stuffing, and sew the skin over the back securely. Truss the bird firmly, and restore it as nearly as possible to its original shape. Cover the breast with thin slices of fat bacon, tie the bird in a clean white cloth, and boil it according to the directions given in the last recipe, being careful to simmer it very gently, for fear the skin should break. Serve it hot or cold with white or celery sauce, and in carving cut slices across the breast, so that turkey, tongue, and forcemeat may be served together. If this dish is intended for supper, let the turkey stand in a cool place for an hour or two, then pour over it some good white sauce lukewarm, ornament with cut lemon, truffle, etc., and garnish the dish with aspic jelly, lemon, and parsley.
A galantine in all but name: a boned turkey wrapped around a whole pickled tongue, poached rather than roasted, and as good cold as hot. The work is all in the boning and the shaping; the cooking itself is slow and undemanding.
- The hinge: gentle heat only"Boil" here means a bare simmer, well short of a rolling boil; the recipe says as much, warning you to simmer very gently for fear the skin should break. Hard boiling risks bursting the sewn seam and the skin, and the forcemeat escapes into the pot.
- Boning the birdThe book sends you to a separate entry for this. Work from a cut down the backbone, keeping the knife against the frame, and leave the wing bones in as instructed — they help hold the shape. Some butchers will do the job if asked in advance.
- The tongue"Small boiled pickled tongue" means a cured ox or lamb tongue, already simmered until tender, peeled, and cooled. Cured cooked tongue is sold vacuum-packed at delis; a lamb tongue suits a smaller turkey better than a whole ox tongue, which can run 3 lb and more.
- Veal forcemeatGround veal with breadcrumbs soaked in milk, suet or fatback, egg, lemon zest, nutmeg, and plenty of salt. Modern ground veal is leaner than the Victorian article, so work in extra fat — roughly a quarter by weight — or the slice cuts dry.
- Fat bacon and the clothUse unsmoked fatback or thinly sliced streaky bacon over the breast; smoke will dominate a poached bird. A double layer of scalded cheesecloth or a clean cotton pillowcase does for the cloth, tied at both ends and along the length so the roll cannot shift.
- Time and temperatureFigure roughly 20 minutes per pound of stuffed weight in barely trembling water, and check the center of the forcemeat with a thermometer: 165F. A boned, stuffed bird of 8-10 lb takes about three hours.
- Cooling for the supper versionAn hour or two "in a cool place" meant a larder. Cool the roll uncovered for no more than an hour at room temperature, then refrigerate; coat with the white sauce or aspic once it is properly chilled, not lukewarm on a warm bird.
- Yield and carvingA boned 9 lb turkey with tongue and forcemeat serves 14 to 16. Carve in thin crosswise slices with a long knife so each round shows the ring of turkey, the pale forcemeat and the dark tongue at the center.
- The saucesThe recipe names only white or celery sauce without saying how to build either; a white sauce made on milk, or on the strained cooking liquid, will both serve, and celery sauce is the same thing with celery simmered soft and sieved into it. Worth straining and reserving the broth rather than tipping it out.
Boiled turkey belongs to a tradition that has almost vanished from English-speaking kitchens: the large bird poached in a cloth, served with a pale sauce, and treated as a cold buffet centerpiece as readily as a hot dinner. It comes from a period when a boned and reshaped bird — what French kitchens called a galantine — was a set piece of the ambitious household cook, and when the pickled tongue at its center was a familiar larder item rather than a curiosity. The instruction to carve across the breast so that "turkey, tongue, and forcemeat may be served together" is the whole point of the construction: the arrangement is designed to look like nothing much until the knife goes in. That the same dish could be dressed with aspic, truffle and cut lemon for a supper table shows how thoroughly late-Victorian cooking borrowed the vocabulary of French charcuterie while keeping resolutely English ingredients inside.