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Roast Turkey (Prepare and stuff)
Prepare and stuff as in preceding recipe, and lard as described `in general directions; place in oven not quite as hot as for roasting meats (if the fire is very hot, lay a piece of brown paper, well greased, over the fowl, to prevent scorching); put a table-spoon of butter in bits on the breast; it will melt and run into the drippingpan, and is used to baste the fowl as roasting progresses; baste often (once in ten minutes), watching the turkey as it begins to brown, very carefully, and turning it occasionally to expose all parts alike to the heat; it should be moist and tender, not in the least scorched, blistered or shriveled, till it is a golden brown all over. For the first two-thirds of the time required for cooking (the rule is twenty minutes to the pound and twenty minutes longer) the basting should keep the surface moistened so that it will not crisp at all; meantime the oven should be kept as close as possible. In basting use the door that opens to the left, so that the right hand may be used conveniently through a small opening; and a long gauntlet glove is a good thing to protect the hand and arm during the operation. In turning the pan, do it as quickly as possible ; season with two tea-spoons salt when half done. In the last third of the time allowed for cooking, withdraw the pan partly from the oven (resting the end on a block of wood or a plain stool of the proper height kept for the purpose), and dredge the breast, upper portion and sides thoroughly, by sifting flour over the fowl from a fine sifter, return pan to oven, and let remain until the flour is well browned, then baste freely with drippings from the pan, and flour again, repeating the flouring and browning, and allowing the crust to grow crisper each time; there will probably be time to repeat the process three or four times before finishing. Take care not to wash off the flour by basting; give it time to brown on thoroughly, and do not take out of oven until all the flour of last dredging is thoroughly browned. If it is necessary to turn the turkey in the pan, use a towel, and never stick it with a fork, to allow the juice to escape. In roasting a large turkey, a liberal allowance of butter for cooking, including gravy for serving in two successive days, is one tea-cupful, but less may be used, according to taste or necessity for economy. When done the entire surface will be a rich, frothy, brown crust, which breaks off in shells in carving, and makes the most savory of morsels. Dish the turkey. To make the gravy, boil the heart, liver, gizzard and neck in two quarts of water for two hours, then take them up, chop gizzard, heart and liver, put them back again, thicken with one table-spoon of flour wet with cold water; season with salt and pepper; after the turkey has been taken up, pour into dripping-pan, set on the top of the stove, and boil five minutes, stirring constantly, scraping the sides of the pan until free from the rich, savory particles that adhere. Serve in a gravy-boat.
This is a coal- or wood-range method written for a cook who could not read a dial and had no thermometer to put in the bird. The technique holds up; the timing does not.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no number, only "not quite as hot as for roasting meats," i.e. a moderate oven; something around 325F is a reasonable modern reading rather than a figure the text supplies. The greased brown paper is a heat shield for a range with hot spots; foil laid loosely over the breast does the same job.
- Timing, and why it is wrongTwenty minutes to the pound plus twenty puts a 14 lb bird at a full five hours. Modern practice is about 13-15 minutes per pound unstuffed at 325F, and doneness is judged by temperature, not the clock: at least 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone.
- Stuffed birdsThe preceding recipe stuffs the turkey, and stuffing inside the cavity must itself reach 165F. That is one reason many cooks now bake the dressing separately -- getting the centre of the stuffing safe can mean overshooting the breast.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of pork fat through the lean flesh with a larding needle. Few kitchens keep one. Draping the breast with bacon or streaky pork, or rubbing softened butter under the skin, serves the same purpose.
- A tea-cupful of butterAn unstandardised measure, commonly reckoned at somewhere between half a cup and three-quarters of a cup in books of this period, and the book says plainly this covers two days of gravy as well. Half that is ample for the roast itself.
- The flour crustThis is the part worth keeping. Dredging the browned bird with sifted flour, letting it set, then basting and repeating builds the "frothy brown crust" described at the end. It needs a dry surface each time -- baste, wait for the shine to go, then flour.
- Basting frequencyEvery ten minutes means the oven door is open constantly, which is why the text frets about keeping the oven "as close as possible." Basting every 30-40 minutes gives the same result in a modern insulated oven with far less heat loss.
- Giblet gravyTwo hours' boiling in two quarts reduces to a strong stock. Discard the neck bones before chopping. One tablespoon of flour will barely thicken what remains -- expect a thin, brothy gravy, and add more flour or a roux if you want body.
- RestingThe recipe goes straight from oven to carving. Let the bird stand 20-30 minutes under loose foil; the drippings you need for the pan gravy are ready the moment the turkey comes out.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the great wave of American compilation cookbooks of the 1880s, assembled from contributed recipes and reissued regionally with new titles and local material. The small domestic details date it precisely: the instruction to use "the door that opens to the left" so the right hand can work through a narrow opening, the block of wood kept expressly for resting the end of a dripping-pan, the long gauntlet glove for the forearm. These are the habits of a cast-iron range fired with wood or coal, where oven heat could not be set, only judged and managed. The flour-dredging finish -- building a crackling shell in three or four layers -- is an older roasting-spit technique carried indoors. Turkey was already the fixed centre of the American holiday table by the time this book was printed, and the note about gravy enough "for serving in two successive days" tells you the bird was expected to feed a household well past the meal it was roasted for.