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Turkey, Stuffed with Chestnuts
Take as many sound chestnuts as will completely fill the body of the bird. Make a small gash with a sharp knife in the outer skin to keep them from bursting, throw them into plenty of fast-boiling water, and let them boil until soft. Drain and dry them, and peel off the outer and the inner skin, look them over carefully, and reject any decayed or mouldy nuts. Fill the turkey's crop with good veal forcemeat, afterwards fill the body of the bird with the boiled chestnuts and the liver, and sew it up securely. Put it down to roast, and baste liberally. Serve on a hot dish, and send brown gravy and either bread sauce or onion sauce to table with it. The brown sauce may be made with turkey giblets as follows. Mince the heart and gizzard, and let them simmer gently for an hour or more. Skim the liquor, strain it, thicken with a little brown thickening, and season with pepper and salt. Add a glassful of claret and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, let it boil a minute or two, and it will be ready for serving. Time to roast the turkey, an hour and a half to two hours and a half, according to size.
A standard Victorian roast turkey, distinguished by two separate stuffings — forcemeat at the neck, whole boiled chestnuts in the body. The chestnut work is the part that repays care; the roasting instructions need a thermometer rather than a clock.
- Roast to temperature, not to the clockAn hour and a half to two and a half hours assumes a small bird and a fierce fire. Roast at 325F and take the turkey out when the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F and the centre of the stuffing reads the same — a stuffed 12-14 lb bird usually needs 3½ to 4 hours.
- The chestnutsScore each nut through the shell on the flat side before boiling, or they burst. Peel while still hot: the papery inner skin clings hopelessly once the nut cools. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are a legitimate substitute — about 1 lb 8 oz for a mid-sized bird.
- "Crop"The neck cavity, the loose pocket of skin at the front of the bird. Forcemeat goes there because it holds its shape against the breast; the loose chestnuts go in the body.
- Veal forcemeatVictorian veal forcemeat is minced veal or veal suet with breadcrumbs, lemon zest, parsley, thyme and egg to bind. Sausage meat with breadcrumbs and herbs is a serviceable substitute and easier to buy, though coarser and fattier.
- The liverTucking the raw liver loose among the chestnuts is chancy: it can end up underdone in the middle of a mass of stuffing. Safer to chop it into the forcemeat or fry it separately for the gravy.
- Brown thickeningA Victorian standby: flour cooked in butter or dripping until nut-brown, kept in a jar. Whisk in a roux made fresh, or a beurre manié, at roughly 1 oz each butter and flour per pint of stock.
- Mushroom ketchupNot tomato ketchup but a thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, still sold by some British makers. A teaspoon of soy sauce plus a dash of Worcestershire stands in acceptably.
- ClaretSimply red Bordeaux in period usage; any dry red will do. A "glassful" in books of this date is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz.
- YieldA 12-14 lb turkey with both stuffings serves ten to twelve, with meat over.
Chestnut stuffing for turkey appears in English cookery books through the nineteenth century as a more elegant alternative to sage and onion, and is often linked with the French dinde aux marrons. The arrangement here — forcemeat in the crop, whole chestnuts in the body — gives a sliceable stuffing at the neck end and a loose, sweet filling that flavours the cavity without being served in neat portions. The giblet gravy is characteristic of a period when little came home from the poulterer wasted: heart and gizzard simmered for stock, liver cooked with the bird. Mushroom ketchup and a glass of claret in the sauce suggest a dinner-party dish rather than everyday cooking; both were pantry stores that gave depth to a gravy in the days before commercial stock.