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Roast Turkey
Singe, draw and truss a turkey, season it interiorly with salt and cayenne pepper, put in a baking-dish with the washed liver and gizzard, and sufficient water to make the gravy, and bake it in a brisk oven, basting frequently, When it begins to brown dredge it over with flour, turning it often so that each part can be equally browned. Cover the breast with a sheet of buttered paper. When cooked, cut the liver and gizzard up, place them in a small saucepan with a lump of butter and one teaspoonful of cream, and stir it over the fire until it is hot. Place the turkey on a hot dish, first removing the paper from the breast. Skim the fat off the gravy into the bakingpan, and strain it into the saucepan with the gizzard and liver. Pour the gravy over the turkey, and serve it while very hot.
Roasted Turkey, Financiere Style Prepare the bird as for roasting, season the interior with one teaspoonful of finely-chopped thyme and parsley, and a small quantity of mace, pepper and salt. Stuff the bird with veal forcemeat, make an incision down each side of the breast, and fill them with washed and sliced truffles. Put the bird in a deep dish, sprinkle a small quantity of cayenne pepper over it, and allow it to soak in wine for twelve hours. At the end of that time fasten a sheet of buttered paper over the bird, and roast it in a brisk oven from an hour and a half to two hours, according to the size of the bird. Baste it in the wine in which it marinaded until it is half cooked, and then continue basting it with butter. Pour the remainder of the wine into a saucepan with one breakfast cupful of rich, brown gravy, one tablespoonful of Indian soy, and the strained juice of one lemon, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. When boiling, move the sauce to the side of the fire, and keep it simmering gently for fifteen or twenty minutes. When cooked, take the turkey up, remove the buttered paper, place it on a hot dish, pour the sauce round it, and serve. Roasted Turkey Stuffed with Bacon and Truffles.
Single, draw and truss a turkey. Wash and peel one and one-half pounds of truffles, chop them, place them in a mortar and pound them. Chop and pound an equal quantity of fat bacon, and mix it with the truffles. Stuff the bird with the mixture, cover the breast with a sheet of buttered paper, and roast it in the oven, basting it frequently with butter. When the bird is nearly done, remove the paper, dredge it over with flour, and baste with butter till nicely browned. When cooked place the turkey on a hot dish, pour a little rich, brown gravy over it, and serve with a sauceboatful of the same.
Three turkey preparations from the Waldorf's roasting oven, written for cooks who knew their birds and their ovens by feel. The gaps worth filling are temperature, doneness and a few vanished ingredients.
- The hinge: cook to temperature, not to the clockOnly the Financiere bird gives a time at all, and "an hour and a half to two hours" fits a small turkey. Roast until the thickest part of the thigh reads 165-170F and the breast at least 165F, then rest 20-30 minutes before carving.
- "Brisk oven"Roughly 400-450F. For a whole turkey, use it only for the first 20-30 minutes to set the skin, then drop to 325-350F for the remainder or the outside will be dry long before the thigh is done.
- The buttered paperA sheet of parchment rubbed with butter, laid over the breast to keep it from colouring too fast. Foil does the same job. Remove it for the last stretch so the skin browns, exactly as the recipe says.
- The twelve-hour wine soakMarinate the Financiere turkey in the refrigerator, covered, not on a counter. A raw bird held twelve hours at room temperature is a straightforward food-safety failure; cold marinating works more slowly but is the only safe option.
- Indian soyA nineteenth-century bottled sauce sold in British and American groceries, essentially an imported soy sauce, often thicker and sweeter than what you buy now. A tablespoon of ordinary dark soy sauce is the sensible stand-in.
- Veal forcemeatGround veal bound with breadcrumbs soaked in milk, egg, suet or butter, and seasoning, worked smooth. Ground pork or a pork-and-veal mix behaves the same way. Stuff loosely and check the centre of the stuffing reaches 165F as well.
- A pound and a half of trufflesIn the third recipe that is a restaurant's budget, not a household's. A workable substitute is a few ounces of chopped mushrooms with a small amount of truffle, or a good truffle paste worked into the pounded fat bacon.
- "Breakfast cupful"Roughly 8 to 10 fluid ounces; treat it as one standard cup. The brown gravy meant is a reduced brown stock, so use a strong homemade or good-quality stock reduced until it coats a spoon.
- Giblet gravyThe liver and gizzard method in the first recipe works, but skip simmering the liver hard; chop it in at the end so it stays tender. Skim the fat properly. A 12-14 lb bird serves 10-12.
Oscar Tschirky's book was published in 1896, when the Waldorf was new and its kitchen was making the case that American hotel cooking could stand beside Parisian. That ambition shows here: the plain roast turkey, an American holiday bird with its giblet gravy, sits directly beside the same bird treated financiere — the classic French garnish style of truffles, cockscombs and Madeira, whose name is traditionally explained by that extravagance, food fit for a financier. The third version, stuffed with pounded truffles and fat bacon, belongs to the tradition of truffled turkeys that were a fixture of grand French Christmas tables through the nineteenth century. The bottle of Indian soy in the sauce is a period marker of its own: imported soy was a familiar shelf item in Victorian and Gilded Age kitchens, used much as Worcestershire was, to darken and deepen a brown sauce.