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Turkey, Stuffed with Sausage-Meat
Take a well-kept turkey weighing about eight pounds. Bone it according to the directions previously given, and draw out all the bones excepting those of the wings. Take about three pounds of fine sausage-meat, and one pound of veal forcemeat. If liked, sausage-meat only may be used, and in this case some minced herbs should be mixed with the seasoning. The sausage-meat should be rich with fat, and moistened with a little cold stock or water. Fill the empty places where the bones have been and the body of the bird with the sausage-meat. Draw the turkey to its original form, tie both ends of the bird and the ends of the legs securely, truss the bird firmly, and plump it well (see TURKEY, TRUSSED FOR ROASTING). Flour it, tie it to the spit, instead of sticking the hook into it, and let it be well supported by having a string tied once or twice round the body, as the stuffing will make the bird heavy. Put it down to a clear fire, but at some distance from it, and baste liberally until done enough. When this point is reached the steam will draw towards the fire. Flour and baste the bird again for a few minutes, take it up, send it to table on a hot dish, garnishing with sausage and forcemeat balls. Bread sauce may be served with the turkey, together with a little gravy made from the bones of the bird stewed down with stock, and a little seasoning. The appearance of the dish will be improved if the breast is evenly larded. A roasted turkey is very good stuffed with sausage-meat without being boned. Time to roast the turkey, nearly two hours. Probable cost, turkey, 6s. to 12s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A boned bird packed with four pounds of raw forcemeat is a large, dense object, and almost everything that needs adjusting here follows from that. The original assumes a spit before an open fire and a cook who judges doneness by watching steam.
- The hinge: cook to temperature, not to timeAn eight-pound turkey, boned and carrying about four pounds of raw sausage-meat and forcemeat, is close to a twelve-pound roast of largely solid meat. Take it to 165F/74C at the very centre of the stuffing, checked in two or three places, which is likely to take longer than the "nearly two hours" the recipe allows for spit-roasting.
- Spit to ovenWithout a spit, set the bird on a rack in a roasting tin and give it 325F. Start breast-down for the first third of the cooking, turn it, and baste as the recipe directs; the string work described is still worth doing, since a boned bird will sag and split without it.
- Veal forcemeatA standard nineteenth-century forcemeat of minced veal, suet, breadcrumbs, lemon peel, herbs and egg. Ground veal is a special order in most places now; ground pork or a mix of pork and chicken thigh gives a similar texture, and the recipe itself allows sausage-meat alone with added herbs.
- "Rich with fat"This is not a flourish. Lean modern sausage-meat inside a boned bird cooked for two hours or more will set into a dry brick. Use a butcher's sausage-meat at around 25-30 per cent fat, or a coarse-ground pork shoulder seasoned yourself.
- Plumping and lardingTo plump is to dip the trussed bird briefly in boiling water and then in cold, tightening the skin. Larding means threading strips of pork back fat through the breast with a larding needle; both are cosmetic and structural rather than necessary, and both can be skipped. Bacon laid over the breast does much the same work.
- Judging by steamThe old test - steam drawing towards the fire rather than rising straight up - was a real signal at an open hearth and means nothing in a closed oven. Use a probe thermometer.
- Resting and carvingRest the bird a full 30 minutes before cutting; a boned, stuffed turkey slices across into rounds of meat and forcemeat and holds heat well. Carve with a long knife rather than trying to joint it.
- Cost and yieldThe 6s. to 12s. is late-Victorian retail pricing and has no modern equivalent. "Five or six persons" is conservative for this quantity of meat - eight to ten is realistic, with leftovers.
Boning a bird and re-forming it around a forcemeat is one of the set pieces of the grand nineteenth-century kitchen, a relative of the French galantine and of the more theatrical dishes in which several birds are nested inside one another. Cassell's, published for a middle-class readership, presents it without ceremony as one option among the turkey entries, alongside the plainer advice that "a roasted turkey is very good stuffed with sausage-meat without being boned" - a characteristic concession to readers who did not keep a professional cook. The pairing of turkey with sausage-meat and bread sauce was already firmly established in Britain by this date; turkey had been raised in England since the sixteenth century and had largely displaced goose as the festive bird of the prosperous household by the late Victorian period, though goose held on longer in poorer kitchens. The instruction to tie the bird to the spit rather than hook it is a practical detail from a period when the mechanical bottle-jack and the open range were still in everyday use.