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Turkey, Cooked, to Eat Cold
Cold turkey makes a very useful dish for suppers, luncheons, collations, etc. It may either be stewed or roasted, and may be dished whole and glazed, when it will form a handsome dish; or it may be cut into pieces convenient for serving, when two dishes at least may be made of it. If it is to be roasted, stuff it with sausage-meat, truss it firmly, and roast in the usual way. Let it get cold, then lay two coats of dissolved glaze lightly and evenly upon it with a brush, and remember that one coat must dry perfectly before the other is put on. When it is not convenient to prepare this glaze at home, it may be bought at the Italian warehouses, and a quarter of a pound will be more than sufficient for a good-sized turkey. Garnish the turkey as prettily as possible with parsley, cut lemon, real or artificial camellias, aspic jelly, beetroot, or any other devices; ornament the dish with parsley and cut lemon, and fill the empty spaces in the centre of the dish with clear aspic jelly cut small.
This is a presentation method rather than a formula: a plainly roasted bird, cooled, sealed under meat glaze and dressed for a cold table. The hinge is the glaze — thin, warm, and applied in two coats with the first bone dry, or it slides and streaks.
- "Dissolved glaze"This is glace de viande: brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm and jellied when cold. It is warmed just to the point of brushing consistency, not made hot, or it will melt the fat on the bird's skin and go cloudy. A quarter pound is indeed ample for a large turkey.
- Italian warehousesNineteenth-century shops selling oils, pastes, dried goods and preserved delicacies — the ancestors of the delicatessen. The modern equivalent is bought demi-glace or a good reduced veal stock; check that it sets solid when chilled, since many commercial versions are thickened rather than reduced.
- Roasting temperatureThe book assumes "the usual way" of its own kitchen. Roast at 325–350F and take the thickest part of the thigh to 165F; if the bird is stuffed with sausage-meat, the centre of the stuffing must reach 165F as well, which usually means the breast overcooks slightly. Cooking the sausage-meat separately as a loaf avoids that.
- Cooling"Let it get cold" meant a cold larder. Refrigerate the bird uncovered as soon as it stops steaming and chill it down promptly — standard guidance is out of the danger zone within a few hours rather than left to stand; a stuffed turkey left overnight in a warm room is the classic setting for a bacterial problem. Chilled skin also takes glaze far better than tepid skin.
- Aspic jellyA clear savoury jelly of clarified stock, set with the gelatine in the stock itself or with added leaf gelatine. Set it in a shallow tray, then chop or cut it small for scattering. Powdered gelatine at about half an ounce to a pint of well-flavoured stock gives a jelly firm enough to cut cleanly.
- Camellias and other "devices"Artificial flowers appear as dish ornament in this period, as the recipe's own wording shows, and were not meant to be eaten. If you use them, keep them off the food itself; parsley, lemon and beetroot do the same work and are edible.
- Two dishes from one birdThe alternative suggestion — carving the cold bird and arranging it — is the more practical one now. The recipe gives no weight; as a rough modern guide, a 10–12 lb turkey will stretch to a dozen or more buffet portions, with the legs and thighs sliced for one platter and the breast for another.
Cold turkey was a fixture of the Victorian and Edwardian supper table, the "collation" that followed a ball, a shooting party or a Christmas dinner, and this entry belongs to a whole genre of instructions for making yesterday's roast look deliberate. Glazing was the key to that: a coat of reduced meat stock gave a cold bird a lacquered, unified surface and, incidentally, slowed its drying out — comparable in logic to the elaborate chaud-froid work of professional kitchens, scaled down for a household cook with a brush and a bought pot of glace. The instruction to buy the glaze ready-made rather than reduce gallons of stock at home suggests readers who could not count on a stockpot permanently on the range. The artificial camellias belong to their moment too: garnish in this period was frankly decorative, and the line between food and table ornament was drawn much less firmly than it is now.