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Hashed Turkey
Cut up whatever may be left of a roasted turkey and put it into a saucepan; add to it some shallots, mushrooms and truffles, chopped parsley, two tablespoonfuls of cullis, about a half pint of stock, or a little more, one wineglassful of white wine and a seasoning of pepper and salt, and allow it to simmer for half an hour. Then add one pounded anchovy and one teaspoonful of lemon-juice. Skim off the fat, and serve hot all together. Hashed Turkey, Royal Take about a pound and a half of nicely-shaped pieces of cooked turkey, place them in a saucepan with one pint of bechamel sauce, three tablespoonfuls of mushroom liquor, and two truffles cut into square pieces. Season with one pinch of salt, one-half pinch of pepper and a little grated nutmeg, all heated together for ten minutes; then serve with six heart-shaped pieces of bread for a garnish.
Two ways with leftover roast turkey, one brown and sharp with anchovy, one white and creamy. The page runs them together; treat them as separate dishes.
- CullisAn anglicised coulis, which in this period means a thick, strained brown meat gravy used to bind and enrich a sauce, not a fruit or vegetable purée. Two tablespoons of demi-glace, or a very reduced brown stock, does the same work.
- Liquid measuresA wineglassful is about 2 fl oz (¼ cup). Half a pint of stock is 1 cup. Together with the cullis that gives roughly 1½ cups of liquid for the hash.
- Don't simmer the turkey half an hourThe half-hour simmer is meant to build the sauce, not cook the bird, which is already cooked. Reduce the shallots, mushrooms, wine, stock and cullis for 25 minutes on their own, then slide the turkey in for the last five so it heats through without shredding to threads.
- The anchovyOne pounded anchovy is the seasoning hinge here: it reads as depth, not fish. A scant teaspoon of anchovy paste is a reasonable substitute. Add it at the end, as written, and taste before adding any more salt.
- TrufflesTruffles were a luxury the Waldorf could assume and most kitchens cannot; in this period they would as often have been preserved or tinned as fresh. Jarred truffle peelings with their liquor are the honest substitute; a handful of extra sautéed mushrooms is the cheerful one. Truffle oil loses its aroma when simmered.
- Mushroom liquorIn the Royal version this means the strained soaking or cooking liquid from mushrooms, not a spirit. Soaking liquid from dried mushrooms, or the pan juices from sautéed ones, works.
- The béchamel versionTen minutes is a gentle reheat, not a simmer. Keep the béchamel below a boil or it will break around the turkey and taste floury.
- Heart-shaped breadCroûtes. The recipe says only that they are heart-shaped pieces of bread; such garnishes were conventionally fried or toasted until golden and set round the dish. Cut them before you start the sauce.
- YieldThe Royal version, at a pound and a half of meat with six croûtes, will stretch to four to six as a lunch or supper dish, more if there is rice or potato under it. The first recipe gives no quantity -- it depends on what is left of the bird.
Hashes of this kind were the respectable end of a joint in nineteenth-century service, and a hotel like the Waldorf had a great deal of roast turkey to account for. The two treatments show the whole logic of the classical sauce repertoire in miniature: the same cold meat goes brown with cullis, wine and anchovy, or white with béchamel, nutmeg and mushroom liquor, and becomes two dishes with two prices. Oscar Tschirky, who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893 and put his name to The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf in 1896, was a maître d'hôtel rather than a chef, and the book reads as a house compendium of what the kitchen actually sent out. The pounded anchovy is the older English note in it; British cookery had used anchovy as a savoury background in made dishes since the eighteenth century, well before Worcestershire sauce took over the same job.