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Turkey-Bone Soup
After a roasted turkey has been served a portion of the meat still adheres to the bones, especially about the neck; "drumsticks" are left, or parts of the wings, and pieces rarely called for at table. If there is three-fourths of a cupful or more left cut off carefully and reserve for force-meat balls. Break the bones apart and with stuffing still adhering to them, put into a soup-kettle with two quarts water, a table-spoon salt, a pod of red pepper broken into pieces, three or four blades of celery cut into half inch pieces, three medium-sized potatoes, and two onions all sliced. If the dinner hour is one o'clock the kettle should be over fire before eight o'clock in the morning; or if the dinner is at six in the evening, it should be on by twelve o'clock. Let it boil slowly but constantly until about half an hour before dinner; lift out bones, skim off fat, strain through colander, return to soup-kettle. There will now be but little more than a quart of the soup. If more than this is desired, add a pint of hot milk or milk and cream together; but it will be very nice without this addition even though a little more water be added. Prepare the forcemeat balls by chopping the scraps of turkey very fine; take half a tea-spoon cracker-crumbs, smoothly rolled, a small salt-spoon of cayenne pepper, about double the quantity of salt, a little grated lemon peel and half a tea-spoon powdered summer-savory or thyme; mix these together and add a raw beaten egg to bind them. Roll mixture into balls about the size of a hickory-nut, and drop into the soup ten minutes before serving. Have ready in tureen a large tablespoon of parsley, cut very fine. Pour in soup, and send to table hot. If force-meat balls are not liked, boil two eggs for half an hour, cut in slices, put them in tureen with the parsley, and pour the soup over them; or slices of bread (not too thick) can be toasted, buttored on both sides, cut into inch squares, and substituted for the wiced eggs.-Mrs. R. N. Hazard, Kirkwood, Mo.
A carcass soup written for a household that had roast turkey on the table and a coal range that stayed lit all day. The bones and the leftover stuffing are the flavor base; everything else is adjustable.
- Cooking timeThe five- to six-hour boil assumes a range fire and a heavy kettle at a bare tremble. On a modern burner, two to three hours at a slow simmer extracts everything worth having from a turkey frame; longer only reduces it further. "Boil slowly but constantly" means a lazy simmer, not a rolling boil, or the broth turns cloudy.
- SaltA tablespoon of salt in two quarts is heavy-handed by current taste, especially since the liquid reduces to about a quart. Start with a teaspoon and season at the end.
- A pod of red pepperA whole dried cayenne or similar hot chile, broken up so the seeds go in too. One pod in two quarts gives noticeable heat; use half if that matters to you, and fish the pieces out before straining.
- Blades of celeryRibs, not leaves — three or four stalks cut in half-inch lengths. Since the whole pot is strained, the vegetables are there for flavor only; the potatoes will collapse and body the broth slightly.
- The cracker-crumb measurement"Half a tea-spoon cracker-crumbs" cannot be right for three-quarters of a cup of chopped turkey plus an egg — the mixture would not hold together as balls. Read it as somewhere between a quarter and a half cup of fine crumbs, adding just enough to make a mixture that rolls. The salt and cayenne quantities in the same sentence are sensible as written.
- Size of the ballsA hickory nut is roughly three-quarters of an inch to an inch across. Drop them into simmering, not boiling, soup so they hold; ten minutes suits that size with a raw egg binder.
- Adding milkIf you use the pint of milk or milk and cream, warm it separately and add it at the end off the heat. Boiling it in a broth this concentrated risks curdling.
- The half-hour eggsThirty minutes gives a gray-green yolk and a rubbery white. Twelve minutes in barely simmering water, then cold water, gives sliceable hard-cooked eggs.
- YieldAbout a quart of finished soup — two generous or four small servings. Skimming is far easier if you chill the strained broth and lift the solid fat off, which also lets you make the soup a day ahead.
The Dixie Cook-Book belongs to a family of late nineteenth-century American compilations built from recipes signed by named contributors — here Mrs. R. N. Hazard of Kirkwood, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. The dish itself is carcass economy: a roast bird was a substantial expense for a middle-class household, and the frame, the neck, the picked-over drumstick and even the stuffing still clinging to the ribs were treated as the second meal rather than waste. The force-meat balls are the older, more formal element, belonging to the English forcemeat tradition, and their presence suggests the dish was not meant to look like leftovers when it reached the tureen. The alternatives offered at the end — sliced hard eggs, or buttered toast cut into squares — were long-established garnishes for soups in English cookery.