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Turkey, Old, the Best Way of Dressing
Stuff the turkey with veal forcemeat, and truss it for boiling. Cut a pound of lean bacon into dice, and fry these in a quarter of a pound of butter over a clear fire till they are lightly browned. Put in the turkey, breast downwards. Cover the saucepan closely, and steam the bird gently for an hour. Lift it out, dredge two table-spoonfuls of flour into the butter, and stir it briskly with the back of a wooden spoon till it forms a smooth paste. Add gradually three or four pints of boiling stock, put in the turkey, and with it four or five large carrots sliced, four turnips, a dozen button onions, a large bunch of parsley, two bay-leaves, three or four sprigs of thyme, and a little pepper and salt. Let all simmer gently together for four hours. Lift the turkey out, and keep it hot. Put the vegetables and sauce into a clean saucepan, place this by the side of the fire, and carefully remove the grease, etc., as it rises to the surface. When no more appears, boil the sauce quickly for a few minutes. Serve the turkey on a hot dish. Arrange the vegetables round it, and pour the sauce over. Garnish the dish with small boiled potatoes or with roasted chestnuts. Time to dress the turkey, five hours.
This is a braise dressed up as a boil: a tough old bird browned in bacon fat, then simmered for hours in a flour-thickened stock with root vegetables. The method still works, but it was written for a bird of a kind no longer sold.
- The hinge: this is for a tough birdThe five hours exists because an "old" turkey is a mature bird, often one past its useful breeding years, with connective tissue that needs long moist heat. A modern supermarket turkey is slaughtered young; give it the full five hours and the breast will be dry shreds. If you use one, a 10-12 lb bird wants roughly two to two and a half hours at a bare simmer, checked at the thigh.
- VesselYou need a pot that will hold the bird breast-down with a lid that closes over it -- a large stockpot, a big oval casserole, or a deep roasting tin covered tightly with foil. A 325F oven holds a steadier simmer than a burner and saves you stirring.
- Veal forcemeatThe period standard is minced veal with shredded suet, fresh breadcrumbs, grated lemon zest, parsley, mace or nutmeg, and egg to bind. Minced veal is a special order in most places now; pork sausage meat loosened with breadcrumbs and lemon zest gives the same effect.
- "Clear fire" and "dredge"A clear fire is a settled, flame-free heat -- medium, no scorching. To dredge flour into the butter is simply to sift it in and cook it to a roux; two tablespoons to three or four pints of stock gives a thin gravy, which the final rapid boil may be intended to correct.
- Stock quantityThree or four pints (60-80 fl oz) will not cover a whole turkey in a wide pot. Add enough to come two-thirds up the bird and turn it once at the halfway point rather than drowning it.
- Button onionsA dozen button onions means small whole pickling onions or the smallest shallots, peeled and left whole. Ordinary onions quartered will dissolve into the sauce over four hours.
- The degreasing stepSetting the pan half off the heat drives the fat to the cool side, where it can be skimmed -- a pound of bacon and a quarter pound of butter leaves a great deal of it. Chilling the strained liquid and lifting the solid cap off is faster if you have the time.
- Doneness and yieldCook until the thigh reaches 165F and the stuffing at the centre of the cavity does too; stuffing inside a braised bird heats slowly. A 12 lb bird with vegetables and potatoes serves ten to twelve.
An old turkey was a real category of meat: a bird past its useful breeding years, too sinewy to roast but too valuable to waste. A common remedy was to brown it in fat, then stew it slowly with roots and a bunch of herbs. The instruction to "truss it for boiling" is telling: a bird trussed for boiling has the legs drawn inside the skin and the wings tucked under, making a compact shape that sits in a pot, as against the sprawled, skewered posture of a roasting bird. Garnishing with roasted chestnuts marks it as a winter dish, and the veal forcemeat and button onions belong to a tradition in which a stewed bird was still expected to arrive at table looking like a centrepiece.