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Boned Turkey in Aspic Jelly
Warm the mould or shape and take out the pressed turkey. Remove the cloth, draw out the thread, wipe off all adhering jelly and fat with a towel dipped in hot water and shave off any discolored or ragged portions. With a vegetable cutter stamp out half a dozen small shapes from a thick sliced green pickle and place them on the bottom of the same mould, well washed and dried, that the turkey was pressed in, and place the turkey resting on them. This leaves a space under and around for a coating of aspic jelly to be poured in and when quite cold and set the boned turkey can be turned out again on to its dish, thinly but evenly encased in clear jelly, which may be sliced and served with it.
To be used only to slice as cold meat the turkey need only have two or three coats of fresh butter melted and applied with a brush, the turkey being very cold. Ornaments of jelly, or of chopped jelly forced through a tube can still be added if desired in the individual dishes.
Your boned turkey, whether incased in jelly or not, will have a handsomer appearance to the consumers inside than outside, and when sent to table whole should always on some excuse or other be cut first, the halves or even the quarters of a turkey that is about all white meat can be edged and finished with decorations to look as well and infinitely more appetising than any over-done "bellevue" that is ever exhibited.
We have spoken of the trifling divergence of common usage from the strict definition of galantine, and have now to notice the same in regard to the description a la bellevue. It is ordinarily understood by cooks and bill of fare writers to mean that the article is incased in jelly and ornamented. But it is applied by old authorities to several other sorts of decoration besides aspic jelly, even to hot dishes. The word means literally a pretty sight. The modern usage is to drop bellevue altogether and just say the galantine is decorated (decoree.) When well done a something en bellevue is unquestionably a very handsome object; the complaint is that a party may go to a ball supper and go away from it hungry for all the good a turkey done that way will do in the way of something to eat. It looks too pretty to cut--the jelly casing, not the turkey, which indeed is not even seen--and besides is not suggestive of anything to eat at all. These things might better be made of cabinet work transparent glue and varnish and save the cook his wasted pains.
This is the finishing stage of a multi-part procedure: the turkey has already been boned, rolled in a cloth, poached, and pressed in a mould under weight. What follows is purely the coating and presentation, and it depends entirely on a well-clarified aspic and a genuinely cold bird.
- Where this sits in the sequenceNothing here cooks the turkey. It is the finishing stage, following the boning, tying in a cloth, simmering and pressing in the mould described earlier.
- Aspic jellyA clear savoury jelly, in period practice a clarified stock set by its own gelatine. Modern stock rarely sets firm on its own; count on softening 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons powdered gelatin per 2 cups of cold, defatted, seasoned stock, and test a spoonful on a chilled plate before you commit it to the mould.
- "Warm the mould"A few seconds in hot water, or a hot cloth wrapped round the outside, loosens the surface fat so the turkey releases in one piece. Any longer and the edges go greasy and slump.
- The hinge: everything must be very coldThe recipe is emphatic that the turkey be very cold, and the jelly should go in only just liquid. Warm jelly melts the fat on the meat and sets cloudy.
- Green pickleA firm sour cucumber pickle, cut in rounds or fancy shapes as a decorative underlay. Any firm gherkin works; avoid sweet pickle, which bleeds sugar and syrup into the jelly.
- The butter alternativeBrushing a very cold bird with melted butter is a period substitute for aspic when the turkey is only to be sliced as cold meat. It seals the surface against drying in a cold larder; in a modern refrigerator, tight wrapping does the same job with less fuss.
- Holding and servingA jellied bird is a cold buffet dish and should not sit out at room temperature for more than about two hours. The author's own advice stands: cut it before it goes to table, or it will be admired rather than eaten.
"A la bellevue" is literally "a fine sight," and this passage is a grumble about it. Nineteenth-century grand service prized the pi i poultry, pressed into a symmetrical loaf, sheathed in mirror-clear aspic and decorated with truffle, tongue, egg white and blanched leek cut into patterns. The technique was serious craft, and clarified jelly was one of the tests of a cold-kitchen cook, but by the end of the century the fashion is often said to have drifted toward display pieces on ballroom buffets that nobody dared cut. The author's distinction between galantine and bellevue reflects a real fluidity in the terms: galantine properly means boned meat rolled, poached in its own stock and served cold, while bellevue was applied by older authorities to several kinds of decoration, hot dishes included, before it faded in favor of simply calling a galantine d cor fae. That aspic itself is now a period curiosity is usually attributed to changes in refrigeration rather than to taste.