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To Warm Over Turkey
Cut the drumsticks and wings from the body, and take off all the meat remaining on the breast. Also use any pieces that may have remained on the platter when the turkey was first carved. Disjoint the back piece, called the rump, splitting it down the back and cutting each piece in two, thus making four pieces of the back. Place all these pieces in a kettle, add three tablespoons of the stuffing and any gravy that may have been left from the roast. Add water to half the height of the turkey in the kettle, cover the kettle tightly, and set it in a moderate heat. Cook at least forty-five minutes, stirring often, adding more water if it should seem necessary; there should be just enough at the last to keep the meat from sticking to the kettle. Season with salt and pepper, turn on a platter, and serve. It is a mistake to cut the meat from the bones, as the result is very unsatisfactory. The turkey should stew so slowly that it will be
A frugal second-day dish that treats the carcass as a braise rather than a reheat. The text breaks off mid-sentence in the original, but the missing words are plainly a caution to keep the pot barely bubbling.
- The hinge: leave the meat on the boneThe author is emphatic, and correct — bones and connective tissue give the thin liquid body and keep the shreds from drying out. Carve it off first and you get stringy meat in grey water.
- "A moderate heat" here means the stovetopThis is a covered kettle over direct heat, not an oven instruction. Keep it at a bare simmer, the surface just trembling; a rolling boil in 45 minutes will shred the already-cooked meat to floss.
- Water levelHalf the height of the turkey in the pot, not enough to cover. You are steaming and braising at once, and the finish should be nearly dry — a few spoonfuls of glossy liquid clinging to the pieces.
- KettleAny heavy pot with a tight lid; a Dutch oven is the direct equivalent. A loose lid means the liquid vanishes and you will be topping it up constantly, which dilutes the flavour.
- The stuffing does the seasoningThe stuffing adds body -- Three tablespoons of stuffing thickens the liquid slightly and carries some of its seasoning through the pot. The recipe does not say what kind of stuffing, and it still calls for salt and pepper at the finish.
- Handling the leftoversRefrigerate the carved bird, gravy and stuffing separately within two hours of the roast and use within three or four days. A modern kitchen is warmer than the cool storage such a dish assumes.
- YieldThe wings, drumsticks, breast scraps and quartered back off one turkey would likely serve four to six, particularly with mashed potato or rice to take up what liquid remains.
Reheating a carved bird was a routine problem in a household that roasted a whole turkey for a single dinner, and cookbooks of the period treated the second and third days as a real culinary question rather than an afterthought. The instruction to keep the meat on the bone reflects a period preference for stews and fricassees; jointing the rump into four pieces so it fits the pot is the same butchery logic applied to fowl for stewing generally. It also shows the era's ordinary thrift: the gravy boat and the stuffing bowl are treated as ingredients, and the scraps abandoned on the serving platter are explicitly reclaimed.