Home › To Boil Chickens or Turkey › To Boil Chickens or Turkey
To Boil Chickens or Turkey
493. Wrap the chickens in a cloth and throw them into boiling water. Boil gently for about three quarters of an hour, (a turkey would require an hour and three quarters.) They eat much better if a slice of fat bacon is skewered on the breast of each fowl, or of a turkey. Serve with celery, parsley, mushroom, or oyster sauce, or simple white sauce, and garnish with lemon.
This is poaching, not boiling: the water should shiver rather than roll, or the breast tightens and shreds. A thermometer settles the timings, which were written for smaller, older birds than the ones sold now.
- Boil gently means barely simmerBring the water to the boil as directed, then drop the heat so the surface only trembles, around 180-190F. A hard boil for three quarters of an hour will give you dry, stringy breast in a good broth.
- The clothWrapping in a cloth appears in a number of period recipes for boiled fowl, apparently to keep the skin pale and unbroken and to make the bird easy to lift out whole. Muslin or cheesecloth tied at both ends does the same job; you can skip it, but leave a loop of kitchen string under the bird so you can retrieve it.
- Times against modern birdsForty-five minutes suits a bird of about 3 lb. A 4-5 lb chicken wants an hour to an hour and a quarter at a bare simmer. The recipe gives no weights; an hour and three quarters would suit a small turkey of roughly 8-10 lb, and a larger one will need longer.
- Check the thighWhatever the clock says, the thickest part of the thigh should read 165F. Poached poultry is easy to misjudge because the skin never colours and gives you no visual cue.
- The baconSkewering fat bacon over the breast is barding: it bastes the leanest muscle and adds salt and smoke to the liquid. Streaky bacon or a sheet of pork back fat works; taste before salting the water, since the bacon will season it.
- Keep the liquorThe cooking water is the foundation of every sauce suggested. Celery sauce is a white sauce finished with celery cooked soft in that broth; oyster sauce here means a white sauce with poached oysters and their liquor, and the oysters go in for a minute or two at the end only, or they turn to rubber.
- Rest before carvingLift the bird out, unwrap it, and let it stand ten minutes under foil. Poached poultry sheds a great deal of juice if cut straight from the pot.
- YieldA 4-5 lb chicken serves four with sauce and vegetables; a 10 lb turkey serves eight to ten, with the broth worth keeping for soup.