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Boiled Turkey
Wash the turkey thoroughly and rub salt through it: fill it with a dressing of bread and butter, moistened with milk and seasoned with sage, salt and pepper, and mixed with a pint of raw oysters; tie the legs and wings close to the body, place in salted boiling water with the breast downward, skim often, boil about two hours, but not till the skin breaks; serve with oyster-sauce. - Mrs. E. L. F., New York City.
A boiled turkey is a Victorian company dish that has almost vanished, but it produces very moist white meat if the pot never actually boils. The recipe assumes a bird of about 8 to 10 lb and a cook who knows what oyster sauce is.
- Do not actually boil itDo not let it gallop -- the recipe does say boiling water and "boil about two hours", but it also warns "not till the skin breaks". Bringing the salted water up and then holding it at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil is the surer way to keep the skin whole and the breast tender.
- Bird size and timingTwo hours suits a bird of roughly 8 to 10 lb. The recipe never states a weight, so this is an inference from the cooking time. A modern 14 to 16 lb supermarket bird will need considerably longer and will barely fit a stockpot; a smaller turkey is truer to the dish.
- Check the stuffing, not just the birdBread dressing packed with raw oysters is the slowest part of the pot to heat. Take the thigh to 165F and the centre of the dressing to 165F as well before serving, and do not pack the cavity tightly or the middle will lag.
- A pint of oystersThat is a US pint of shucked oysters with their liquor, about 16 fl oz; depending on size that is somewhere around 15 to 25 oysters. Sold today as a pint tub at a fish counter. Drain them and save the liquor for the sauce.
- The dressing"Bread and butter moistened with milk" is best read as stale crumb rather than fresh soft bread, which turns to paste in a moist bird. The recipe gives no quantities; about 4 cups of dry crumbs, 4 oz butter and just enough milk to bind is a workable reading.
- Truss and wrapTying legs and wings close keeps the bird compact and stops the skin tearing. Some period cookery books direct wrapping a boiled bird in a floured cloth before lowering it in, to keep the skin white and intact; this recipe does not call for it, but it is worth doing.
- Breast downwardThis keeps the breast fully submerged so it does not dry out above the waterline. Skimming keeps the scum from settling back onto the skin as grey specks.
- Oyster sauceNot the bottled Cantonese condiment. It is a white sauce of butter, flour, milk or cream and the reserved oyster liquor, with oysters poached in it for a minute or two only, until the edges just ruffle.
- YieldAn 8 to 10 lb bird with dressing should serve around 10, with cold meat left over for the next day.
Boiling was the standard alternative to roasting in a period when many households cooked over an open fire or on a small range with an unreliable oven, and a large pot was more dependable than either. Boiled fowl served with a white sauce ran through English cookery for centuries and came to American tables with it; the oyster dressing is the local addition. Oysters were cheap and abundant on the Atlantic coast through the nineteenth century, shipped inland by rail in barrels and kegs, and they turn up in Victorian American cookbooks in stuffings, sauces, pies and soups with a freedom that reads as luxury now. The contribution is signed by a New York City correspondent, and The Dixie Cook Book did draw on contributors from well beyond its titular region; the oyster-heavy Northeastern kitchen is plainly visible here.