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Turkey, with Celery Sauce
Truss it nicely, wrap it up in layers of bacon; then boil it in water with a little salt, butter, and lemon-juice. Drain it, and cover over with celery sauce. (See CELERY SAUCE FOR TURKEYS, FOWLS, ETC.)
A boiled turkey is barely a recipe by modern standards — Cassell's assumes you know the bird, the pot and the timing. The gaps are worth filling before you start.
- The hinge: a bare simmer, never a boilWater at a rolling boil tears the skin, splits the barding and squeezes the breast dry. Bring the pot up, then hold it at 180-185F so the surface only shivers, and keep the bird just covered.
- Timing, since none is givenFigure roughly 15 minutes per pound for a trussed bird plus 20 minutes, so about 2 1/2 to 3 hours for a 10 lb turkey. Go by a thermometer rather than the clock: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone.
- "Wrap it up in layers of bacon"This is chiefly barding: the fat protects the breast during the long simmer, though it will also flavour the meat. Thin unsmoked streaky bacon or sheets of pork back fat suit the dish best; heavily smoked modern bacon will dominate the delicate celery sauce.
- TrussingLegs drawn up tight to the body and wings pinned back, tied with butcher's twine at two or three points. A loose bird splays in the water and cooks unevenly.
- Pot sizeA 10 lb turkey needs a very large stockpot, on the order of 12 quarts, if the water is to cover it. If nothing you own is big enough, jointing the bird -- legs in one pot, crown in another -- is more practical than propping it above the waterline.
- The cooking liquidSalted water with butter and lemon juice works on the same principle as a French blanc: the acid and fat help keep the flesh white. Salt the water properly, about 1 tablespoon per quart, or the meat will taste of nothing. The strained liquor also makes a good base for the celery sauce, though the recipe does not say so.
- DrainingLift the bird onto a rack over a tray and let it drain 10 minutes before carving, or the sauce will slide off a wet surface and pool on the dish.
- YieldA 10 lb turkey served this way will feed roughly 8 to 10.
Boiled turkey was a familiar fixture of the Victorian and Edwardian winter table alongside the roast, and often appeared as a second bird at Christmas; the flesh came out mild and moist. The white cooking liquor of salt, butter and lemon works on the same principle as the French blanc, used to keep poultry and delicate vegetables from greying, and the layers of bacon do much the same job barding does on a roast. Celery was the near-inevitable partner: it is a cold-weather crop, at its best from the first frosts through midwinter, and a creamy celery sauce suited a bird whose pale appearance the period seems to have treated as a virtue rather than a fault. Cassell's cross-reference to a separate celery sauce entry is typical of the dictionary format, which assumed a cook working across several pages at once.