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Braised Turkey
Draw a turkey, truss it as for boiling, and stuff it with a chestnut-and-truffle stuffing, which should be made as follows. Peel off the dark skin from a quantity of chestnuts, place them in a saucepan with two bay leaves, a handful of coriander seeds, a lump of salt and plenty of water, boil and when nearly soft, drain them, and remove the inner skin. Put one pound of finely-minced bacon and two or three chopped shallots into a stewpan, and toss them over the fire for a few minutes. Cut one pound of chestnuts up into small pieces, put them in with the bacon, add one-half pound of truffles, also cut into moderate-sized pieces, and season to taste with pepper, salt, spices and a moderate quantity each of thyme and marjoram. Stir the mixture over the fire for two or three minutes longer, then stuff the bird with it. Put a few slices of bacon at the bottom of a stewpan and put in the bird with three or four sliced carrots, onions, a clove of garlic, a bunch of sweet herbs tied together with a few sprigs of parsley and a bay leaf, add a few peppercorns and salt to taste, moisten to height with one-half pint of sherry and clear stock and cover with a sheet of buttered paper. Put the lid on the pan with some hot ashes on it, and place it over a slow fire. Braise the turkey for about four hours, and when cooked, place it over a slow fire. Braise the turkey for about four hours, and when cooked, place it on a hot dish. Strain the cooking liquor into a small saucepan, skim off all the fat and boil it up again; then pour it over the bird, garnish round with potato croquettes and Brussels sprouts, and serve.
A braised rather than roasted bird, cooked in a covered pot with wine and stock. The technique is sound; the timings and vessels belong to a coal range.
- The hinge: temperature, not the clockFour hours was written for a large bird over uneven heat; the recipe names no weight. Braise until the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F and the stuffing at the centre reads the same; on a modern 12-14 lb turkey in a 325F oven that may be nearer two and a half to three hours. Overshooting turns braised breast meat to cotton.
- "Hot ashes on the lid"This is a Dutch-oven arrangement giving gentle heat from above as well as below. A heavy covered roaster in a 300-325F oven does the same thing; you do not need coals.
- Draw and trussDrawing means removing the innards, already done on any bird you buy. Trussing "as for boiling" means legs and wings bound tight against the body so nothing splays in the pot.
- ChestnutsThe recipe boils them with bay and coriander to loosen the inner pellicle, which is the fiddly part. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts skip both peelings entirely; one pound is roughly three cups chopped. Simmer them briefly in the aromatics if you want the seasoning.
- Half a pound of trufflesOscar was cooking for the Waldorf's account. At current prices this is a several-hundred-dollar stuffing. Chopped cremini or reconstituted dried porcini plus a spoon of truffle oil off the heat gives a dish worth eating, though it is a different dish.
- "Moisten to height"Ambiguous, and worth reading as "to a moderate height" rather than to cover: the liquid should come perhaps a third of the way up the bird. Half a pint of sherry is one cup; add clear stock to reach that level.
- Buttered paperA cartouche of parchment pressed onto the bird, buttered side down, under the lid. It stops the exposed skin drying and keeps condensation from washing the seasoning off.
- Stuffing safetyThe bacon-and-chestnut mixture is cooked briefly before it goes in, but it must still reach 165F inside the bird. Stuff loosely and immediately before cooking, never in advance.
- The sauce and yieldThe sauce -- Straining, skimming and reducing the cooking liquor is the whole sauce; a knob of cold butter whisked in at the end will give it gloss. The recipe states no yield; a whole turkey with croquettes and sprouts will serve a large table.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893 and published The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf in 1896, a vast compendium aimed as much at ambitious households as at professionals. Braising a whole turkey rather than roasting it is a French kitchen habit: the bird sits on a bed of bacon and root vegetables, sealed under paper and a lid, and cooks in its own steam and wine, which suited large birds and the uncertain heat of a coal range better than open roasting did. The chestnut-and-truffle stuffing is straight out of the classical repertoire, where chestnuts and turkey have been paired at least since the eighteenth century in France, and truffles were the standard way of announcing that a dish was expensive. Potato croquettes and Brussels sprouts around the platter mark it as a winter service dish, the kind of thing that would have gone out for a private dinner party in one of the hotel's upstairs rooms.