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Devilled Turkey
Place the legs and wings (jointed) on a gridiron. Broil slowly. Have ready a sauce made of- 1 tablespoonful pepper vinegar. 1 tablespoonful made mustard. 1 tablespoonful celery sauce. 1 tablespoonful acid fruit jelly. A little salt and pepper. Lay the broiled turkey on a hot dish. Pour the dressing and sift pounded cracker over it.--Mrs. S. T.
POTATO STUFFING FOR TURKEYS AND OTHER FOWLS.
Mash smoothly six good-sized boiled Irish potatoes. Chop a small onion very fine and fry a light brown, in a frying-pan, with a dessertspoonful lard. Then add the potatoes with salt and pepper, and a lump of butter as large as a walnut. To this add one well beaten egg, stirring till perfectly dry. If for geese or ducks, add a little sifted sage and a small quantity of red pepper.--Mrs. McG.
Two related items run together here: a way of using up the dark meat of a roast turkey, and a potato stuffing given by a different contributor. Both assume a coal range and a cook who already knows what the words mean.
- Start with cooked turkeyThe recipe does not say, but devilled dishes of this period were generally made with the dark meat of a bird already roasted; broiling then serves to brown the joints and heat them through.
- Gridiron to broilerA gridiron sat over coals. Use a broiler element with the rack lowered, or a grill pan over medium heat, and turn the joints until the skin crisps and blisters, roughly 8-12 minutes total.
- Pepper vinegarThe Virginia pantry staple: small hot peppers steeped in cider vinegar, poured off as needed. A tablespoon of the vinegar from a jar of pickled peppers, or hot sauce thinned with cider vinegar, stands in.
- Made mustardMustard already mixed to a paste, as opposed to the dry powder sold by weight. Any smooth prepared mustard works; English is closest to the intended heat.
- Celery sauceA period condiment of celery cooked down in stock or cream, or a bottled celery-seed sauce. It has effectively vanished. A tablespoon of the cooking liquid from braised celery, or a pinch of celery seed in a spoonful of stock, gives the same savoury note.
- Acid fruit jellyCurrant, crabapple or quince — tart, not sweet. Grape jelly is too sugary and flattens the mustard and vinegar.
- Pounded crackerPlain soda or water crackers crushed fine and sifted. Unseasoned cracker crumbs or panko do the job; the point is a dry crisp layer over the wet sauce, so add it at the table.
- Irish potatoesWhite potatoes, so named to distinguish them from sweet potatoes, which a Virginia cook would otherwise have assumed. Six good-sized ones is roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb.
- Dessertspoonful and walnut of butterA dessertspoon is two teaspoons; the walnut-sized lump of butter is about 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons.
- Cook the stuffing separatelyThe instruction to stir until "perfectly dry" produces a firm potato mixture bound with egg. Baked in a dish alongside the bird rather than packed into the cavity, it reaches temperature safely and does not slow the roast.
- YieldThe devilled joints from one turkey will serve two to four as a supper dish. The stuffing quantity is not stated, but six potatoes make roughly enough for a medium bird or a pair of ducks.
To "devil" a thing meant to season it hot — mustard, cayenne, vinegar — and the term had been current in English kitchens since the late eighteenth century, usually applied to bones, kidneys and the joints left after a large roast. Devilled turkey belongs to the day after a feast, which is why the recipe begins with legs and wings and never mentions cooking the bird. Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1877, gathered contributions from named Virginia housewives and signed them with initials, as here with Mrs. S. T. and Mrs. McG.; the book is a record of what particular households actually did rather than a single author's system. The potato stuffing is the frugal counterpart — mashed potato, onion and egg standing in for the bread and butter of a richer dressing — and the note to add sage and red pepper for geese and ducks reflects the older practice of seasoning more aggressively for fatty birds.