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Turkey-Bone Soup
Never throw away the carcass of a turkey or chicken, for it will make a delicious soup. Scrape the meat from the bones, break them, pack in a kettle, and cover with cold water, adding a small onion. Cover closely and simmer very gently for three hours. Then strain and remove the fat, and return to the fire. For every quart of stock add one cup of the cold meat after which let the soup simmer one-half hour. This soup may be greatly improved by boiling in it three minutes before serving ten oysters to each quart of soup made.
A straightforward carcass stock with a garnish of meat and, optionally, oysters. The original assumes you know how to season, and gives no salt at all.
- The hinge: keep it at a bare simmer"Simmer very gently" is the whole technique. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and drives fine particles into the liquid, giving a cloudy, greasy stock that no amount of straining will fix. Hold it at 185-195F, with the surface barely trembling.
- Break the bonesNot decorative advice. Cracking the carcass and the leg bones opens the marrow and increases surface area, which is where the body of the stock comes from. Kitchen shears through the rib cage and a heavy knife on the drumsticks is enough.
- Season at the endThe recipe lists only bones, water and an onion. Salt after straining and reducing, not before, or you may over-salt as the volume drops. A bay leaf, a few peppercorns, celery and carrot are all period-appropriate additions if you want more than a plain broth.
- Removing the fatThe fastest route is to chill the strained stock; the fat sets in a solid cap you can lift off. If you are working the same day, ladle from the surface and blot the last film with a paper towel laid flat on the liquid.
- Oysters need less than three minutesShucked oysters are done when the edges ruffle and they plump, usually 60-90 seconds in hot broth. Three minutes at a boil, as written, will start to shrink and toughen them. Add them off the heat or at the barest simmer, and serve immediately.
- The cold meatOne cup per quart is generous and makes this a light main course rather than a first course. Half an hour of simmering is more than already-cooked turkey needs; five to ten minutes to heat through keeps it in shreds rather than threads.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. A carcass covered with cold water will, as a rough guide, yield in the region of three to four quarts before reduction; portion to taste rather than to a fixed serving count.
- Cooling and keepingA large pot of stock left on the counter sits for hours in the range where bacteria multiply. Divide it into shallow containers and refrigerate promptly; it keeps three to four days chilled, or several months frozen.
Bone soup of this kind is the tail end of the Thanksgiving and Christmas bird, and its appearance in the soup chapter of a turn-of-the-century American cookbook is a statement of household economy as much as cookery: the carcass, the scraped meat and a single onion produce a second meal from a bird already carved. The oyster garnish is a period touch, though a loose one: oysters went into American soups and stews from well before the 1890s to well after, so they place the recipe only broadly. Oysters were still cheap and widely shipped in the 1890s and 1900s, packed in ice and sold by the quart, and American cookbooks of the period drop them into soups, stuffings, sauces and stews with a freedom that later shellfish prices and shrinking Atlantic beds put an end to. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, published its cook book for the same audience as its magazines -- women running households on a budget who wanted the leftover turkey to go somewhere.