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Boned Turkey (With a sharp knife slit)
With a sharp knife slit the skin down the back, and raising one side at a time with the fingers, separate the flesh from the bones with knife, until the wings and legs are reached. These unjoint from the body, and cutting through to the bone, turn back the flesh and remove the bones. When bones are removed, the flesh may be re-shaped by stuffing. Some leave the bones in the legs and wings, as they are most difficult to remove. Stuff with force-meat, made of cold lamb or veal and a little pork, chopped fine and seasoned with salt, pepper, sage or savory, and the juice of one lemon; sew into shape, turn ends of wings under and press the legs close to the back, and tie all firmly so that the upper surface may be plump and smooth for the carver. Lard with two or three rows on the top, and bake until thoroughly done, basting often with salt and water, and a little butter. This is a difficult dish to attempt. Carve across in slices and serve with tomato-sauce. - Mrs. J. Flemming, Philadelphia, Pa.
A boning job first, a roast second. The hinge is that the stuffing is cooked meat used as a binder and filler, not raw forcemeat that has to come up to temperature on its own — but the bird itself still has to reach a safe internal temperature throughout the rolled mass.
- Temperature, not appearance"Bake until thoroughly done" gives you nothing to work with. Roast at 325F and pull when the center of the stuffed roll reads 165F on an instant-read thermometer; a 10–12 lb boned bird will take roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours. A rolled, stuffed bird is denser than a cavity-roasted one and the middle lags well behind the surface.
- Force-meatHere it means chopped cold cooked lamb or veal with a little pork; the recipe does not say whether that pork is raw or already cooked. Modern practice is to use cooked meat and to cook the pork through as well, and to chill everything before it goes in — a cold filling in a cold bird gives you time to sew and tie without the stuffing warming into the danger zone.
- Larding"Lard with two or three rows" means threading strips of pork fat through the breast with a larding needle. Barding is easier and does the same work: lay sheets of fatback or thin-sliced bacon over the top, or drape caul fat, and remove for the last 20 minutes if you want color.
- Basting with salt and waterProbably an economy, though the recipe still adds a little butter to the baste. Salted water steams the surface and slows browning more than it adds flavour. Melted butter alone, or the pan drippings, will serve better; if you want the salt, brine or season the bird a day ahead instead.
- Leaving the leg and wing bonesSound advice, and worth following the first time. Removing the thigh bone but leaving the drumstick and wing bones keeps the shape recognizable and saves the fiddliest part of the work. If you bone them out, the bird carves cleanly in full slices.
- Sewing and tyingButcher's twine and a trussing needle. Sew the back seam closed with the skin under slight tension, then tie crosswise at 1 1/2-inch intervals so the roll holds a even cylinder. Slack ties give you a lopsided roast that cooks unevenly.
- RestingThe recipe says carve across in slices, which only works if the roll has set. Rest 25 to 30 minutes under loose foil before cutting, or the stuffing crumbles out of every slice.
- YieldA boned 10–12 lb turkey with forcemeat should serve roughly 12 to 16, and it is as good cold as hot — the tied roll slices thin the next day for a cold table.
Boning a bird and re-forming it around a forcemeat is a French kitchen technique — the ballotine and the galantine — and it reached American household books largely from the professional cookery tradition. Mrs. Flemming's frank "this is a difficult dish to attempt" suggests she knew she was passing along a chef's trick to a home cook. A boned, stuffed, tied roll keeps its shape, carves in neat full slices with no bone to negotiate, and stretches one turkey plus scraps of cold lamb or veal across a large number of plates, which would have suited a cold table. The reuse of yesterday's roast as forcemeat is characteristic of late nineteenth-century books, where the same animal was expected to appear in several guises. The Dixie Cook Book gathered contributions by name and city from well beyond the South, and this Philadelphia entry is one of many with no particular Southern character.