Turkey, Boiled
INGREDIENTS. - Turkey; forcemeat. AVERAGE COST, 10д. per lb., but often more expensive at Christmas.
Choosing and Trussing. Hen turkeys are preferable for boiling, on account of their whiteness and tenderness; and one of moderate size should be selected, as a large one is not suitable for this mode of cooking. They should not be dressed until they have been killed 3 or 4 days, as they will neither look white, nor will they be tender. Pluck the bird, carefully draw, and singe it with a piece of white paper; wash it inside and out, and wipe it thoroughly dry with a cloth. Cut off the head BOILED TURKEY. and neck, draw the strings or sinews of the thighs, and cut off the legs at the first joint; draw the legs into the body, fill the breast with forcemeat; run a skewer through the wing and the middle joint of the leg, quite into the leg and wing on the opposite side; break the breastbone, and make the bird look as round and as compact as possible.
Put the turkey into sufficient hot water to cover it; let it come to a boil, then carefully remove all the scum. If this is attended to, there is no occasion to boil the bird in a floured cloth; but it should be well covered with the water. Let it simmer very gently for about 1½ hour to 1¾ hour, according to the size, and serve TURKEY, CROQUETTES OF. with either white, celery, oyster or mushroom sauce, or parsley-and-butter, a little of which should be poured over the turkey.
Boiled ham, bacon, tongue, or pickled pork, should always accompany this dish; and when oyster sauce is served, the turkey should be stuffed with oyster forcemeat.
TIME. A small turkey, 1½ hour; a large one, 1 hour.
SEASONABLE from December to February.
Turkey, Croquettes of. (Cold Meat Cookery.) - INGREDIENTS. The remains of cold turkey to every 1/2 lb. of meat allow 2 oz. of ham or bacon, 2 shalots, 1 oz. of butter, 1 tablespoonful of flour, the yolks of 2 eggs, egg and bread-crumbs.
The smaller pieces, that will not do for a fricassée or hash, answer very well for this dish. Mince the meat finely with ham or bacon in the above proportion; make a gravy of the bones and trimmings, well seasoning it: mince the shalots, put them into a stewpan with the butter, add the flour; mix well, then put in the mince, and about 1/2 pint of the gravy made from the bones. (The proportion of the butter must be increased or diminished according to the quantity of mince.) When just boiled, add the yolks of 2 eggs; put the mixture out to cool, and then shape it in a wineglass. Cover the croquettes with egg and bread-crumbs, and fry them a delicate brown. Put small pieces of parsley-stems for stalks, and serve with rolled bacon cut very thin.
TIME.-8 minutes to fry the croquettes.
SEASONABLE from December to February.
A whole poached turkey is a Victorian centrepiece rather than a roast, and it rewards very gentle heat and a thermometer. The instructions assume a bird bought in feather; a modern oven-ready hen turkey needs none of the plucking, drawing or hanging.
- The hinge: keep it at a bare simmerBring the water up, skim, then hold it at 175-180F so the surface barely trembles. A rolling boil shreds the breast and drives the fat out into the water, which is exactly what this method is meant to avoid.
- Cooking time and donenessThe times printed in this entry contradict each other and cannot be followed. Judge by temperature instead: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone, which for a 10-12 lb hen turkey in barely simmering water usually falls between 2 and 2½ hours.
- Stuffed birdsForcemeat packed into the breast cavity heats more slowly than the meat around it. If you stuff the bird, the centre of the forcemeat must also reach 165F, or cook the forcemeat separately in a buttered dish and serve it alongside.
- Hanging the bird"Should not be dressed until they have been killed 3 or 4 days" reflects the period's ordinary practice with freshly killed poultry, kept in a cold larder. Skip it; buy a chilled or fresh turkey and cook it within its use-by date.
- Singeing with paperThe lit paper was used to take off residual down; paper is usually said to have been preferred because it leaves no deposit on the skin. Not needed on a modern dressed bird; a pass with tweezers over the wing edges is enough.
- Choosing the birdThe recipe asks for a hen of "moderate size" without giving a weight; something in the 8-12 lb range is a reasonable modern reading. Anything larger will not fit a domestic pan with enough water to cover, and the outer meat overcooks long before the centre is done. A large stockpot or a covered roasting tin on two burners works; a fish kettle is ideal.
- The floured clothThe cloth was insurance against scum settling back onto the skin. Diligent skimming in the first ten minutes does the same job, and the cloth makes the bird harder to lift out.
- Cost and the sauces"10d. per lb." is pre-decimal pence and tells you only that turkey was a luxury. Of the sauces named, parsley-and-butter is the simplest; if you go with oyster sauce, add the oysters at the very end and give them a minute or two, as longer makes them rubbery.
- Yield and the accompanimentThe entry gives no number of servings; a 10 lb bird will feed roughly eight. The boiled ham, tongue or pickled pork is not optional garnish in this style of service -- the recipe says it "should always accompany this dish" -- and the cured meat supplies salt the poached turkey lacks.
Boiling, or more properly poaching, was a standard Victorian treatment for a hen turkey when whiteness of flesh was prized above browning, and it stood alongside the roast bird on the Christmas and New Year table. This entry pairs the boiled bird with a cured meat and a white sauce, a pairing familiar from earlier English cookery. The "Seasonable from December to February" note fits the poultry trade's year: birds were fattened through the autumn and brought to market for the Christmas trade, so a boiling hen was a winter proposition. The croquette entry that follows belongs to the cold-meat cookery that runs through the same volumes, in which little from a large joint or bird was expected to be wasted.