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Turkey, Grilled
Take the remains of cold roast turkey, break them into neat joints, then rub them over with a little made mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, and a little finely-minced onion. Grill over a clear fire until brown, then heap on a hot dish. Put a little chopped parsley and oiled butter over, and serve very hot.
A Victorian way through the leftover bird: dry heat, mustard, and cayenne to wake up meat that has already been cooked once. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes.
- "Grill" means broilIn British usage of the period this is direct radiant heat from above or from coals below, not a covered barbecue. A gas or electric broiler set high, with the rack about 4 inches from the element, does the same job; a ridged stovetop grill pan over high heat is the other option.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down past flame and smoke, giving steady heat with no soot. The modern equivalent is a preheated broiler or a charcoal grill whose coals have gone grey. Flame licking the meat will scorch the mustard coating before the pieces colour evenly.
- Made mustardPrepared wet mustard, not the dry powder. English mustard is closest to what Cassell's intended; Dijon works and is milder. Use about a tablespoon for the meat off half a bird, thinned with a spoonful of oil so it spreads rather than sits in patches.
- Oiled butterButter melted until it runs clear and oily. It is often taken as much the same as what a modern kitchen calls clarified or drawn butter, though the period term need mean no more than butter melted right through. Plain melted butter is a fair substitute here since it is going straight onto a hot dish.
- Neat jointsDrumsticks, thighs, wings, and the breast cut across into thick slabs on the bone where possible. Pieces of roughly equal thickness matter more than tidiness: thin scraps of breast will be dry leather by the time a thigh has browned.
- The hinge: it is already cookedThis is a browning and reheating job, not a cooking one. Four to six minutes a side is enough to crust the surface and heat the meat through to 165F. Longer and cold roast turkey, which has already lost moisture once, turns stringy.
- Raw minced onionMince it very fine or it will burn to bitterness under the broiler while the meat is still pale. Grating the onion and using the pulp and juice gives the flavour without the scorching pieces.
- YieldThe remains of a large roast turkey will generally give enough for about four as a hot lunch, served with the parsley butter and something sharp -- pickles, chutney, or a green salad.
Cassell's belongs to a tradition of English cookery books that treated the second appearance of a joint as a real dish rather than an embarrassment, and grilled devilled bones were the standard trick: mustard, cayenne, salt, fierce heat. The same treatment appears under "devil" and "devilled" for beef bones, chicken legs, and turkey throughout the nineteenth century, and the culinary sense of the word -- anything highly spiced and grilled -- is recorded from the late eighteenth century. In a household that roasted a large bird for a Sunday or a Christmas dinner and then faced it cold for several days, this was breakfast or a late supper -- quick, hot, and pungent enough to disguise the fact that the turkey was on its third day. The chopped parsley and drawn butter poured over at the end are a common period finish for grilled meat, doing the work a pan sauce would do now.