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Turkey, Potted
Take a small turkey weighing about five pounds; pluck, singe, draw, and bone it, open it, and cut off the neck and legs. Lay it skin downwards on a table, season with pepper, salt, and powdered mace, spread a layer of forcemeat all over it, and roll it round. Choose a potting-pan of a suitable size for the turkey. Place a layer of forcemeat at the bottom, put in the bird, and cover with forcemeat. Lay three or four thin slices of fat bacon and a bay-leaf on the top. Cover the pan, and place it in a large saucepan with boiling water two inches deep, and as this evaporates add more boiling water to keep it to the same depth. Put it into the oven, and let the turkey cook gently until done enough. To ascertain when this point is reached, push a trussing-needle right through the body of the bird, and when it enters easily the turkey may be taken out. Let it get cold, and cover the surface with a layer of good dripping or lard. Set it in a cool place for several hours, and it will be ready for use. The forcemeat may be made as follows. Cut in slices the meat from the legs of the bird free from skin and sinew. Put with them half a pound of lean veal and a pound of fat bacon. Mince all finely together, and pound the mixture till it is quite smooth, and whilst pounding keep adding pepper, salt, and spice until it is pleasantly flavoured. The quantity of salt must be regulated by the quality of the bacon. Time to bake, three hours.
This is a galantine in all but name: a boned bird wrapped in its own forcemeat, cooked in a covered pot set in water, then sealed under fat and served cold in slices. Two things in the original need translating — the oven, which is never given a temperature, and the fat seal, which was a storage method rather than a garnish.
- The hinge: gentle, even heatThe pot sits in two inches of boiling water precisely so the forcemeat never exceeds a simmer; forced hard it splits, weeps fat and turns grainy. Keep topping the water up with boiling water, not cold, or the temperature swings.
- Oven temperatureNo figure is given; the original assumes a judged oven rather than a dial. For a covered pot standing in water, a modern equivalent is around 325°F, and no higher than 350°F. The recipe calls for boiling water in the outer pan, kept topped up to the same depth.
- Doneness, properly measuredThe trussing-needle test tells you the flesh has softened but nothing about safety. Use a probe in the centre of the roll and take it to 165°F. The recipe allows three hours; begin checking at two in case it is ready sooner.
- "Potting-pan"A lidded earthenware or stoneware pot of a size that holds the rolled bird snugly. A modern terrine mould with a lid, or any deep casserole with a tight cover, does the same job; snug matters, since gaps fill with rendered fat.
- The forcemeatLeg meat, ½ lb lean veal and 1 lb fat bacon, minced and then pounded smooth — a food processor does the pounding in seconds, but keep everything cold or the fat smears. Lean pork shoulder substitutes for the veal without loss. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture to taste it before it goes near the bird, since the salt depends entirely on how salty the bacon is.
- Press it as it coolsThe recipe says only to let it get cold. Weighting the top with a board and a couple of tins while it cools compacts the forcemeat and gives clean slices instead of a crumbling one.
- The fat seal is not preservationThe fat seal -- Dripping or lard over the surface excluded air, which is what made the meat keep in a cold larder; it is not a modern seal and gives no guarantee of safety. Treat it as a fridge terrine: keep it covered and cold, and use it inside three or four days rather than storing it at room temperature.
- YieldA boned 5 lb turkey with a forcemeat of ½ lb veal, 1 lb bacon and the leg meat gives a substantial loaf, enough for a cold table or buffet, served with pickles, mustard or a sharp salad.
Potting was the English answer to keeping cooked meat before refrigeration: cook it through, pack it tight, and pour fat over the top to keep the air off. Cassell's, compiled for late-Victorian middle-class households, gives such entries as potted shrimps and potted beef. This one is grander than most and is really a galantine — boning the bird, lining it with a fine forcemeat and rolling it for cold service, generally traced to eighteenth-century professional kitchens. The veal-and-bacon farce is the standard period binding mixture, and the instruction to judge the salt by the bacon is a reminder that cured pork then varied enormously from one supplier to the next. Cold, sliceable meat that could be made a day ahead was exactly what the Victorian supper table, ball buffet and picnic hamper demanded.