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Rechauffe of Turkey, Andalouse
Pick all the meat off turkey left over from yesterday, then cut in thin, small slices and keep on a plate. Place two gills tomato sauce in a saucepan with half teaspoon finely chopped parsley, half teaspoon chopped chives and a very little chopped tarragon, mix well and let boil for ten minutes. Incorporate little by little an ounce fresh butter, sharply mixing while adding it, then add turkey with a half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper. Gently mix, heat for six minutes without boiling, pour rechauffe in deep hot dish and serve.
A leftovers dish that lives or dies on temperature control: the sauce is finished with butter and must never return to a boil once the turkey goes in.
- Two gillsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of tomato sauce is one cup. The recipe does not say how much turkey to expect, but a cup of sauce will coat a couple of cups of picked meat, which is roughly a light main course for three or four.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons is half a teaspoon of pepper. Against a cup of sauce that is assertive by modern taste; start with half that and adjust.
- The tomato sauceThis assumes a made sauce from the kitchen's stock of basics — a simple cooked tomato sauce, not ketchup and not raw purée. Canned passata simmered down with a little butter and salt stands in well.
- Do not let it boilButter beaten in little by little makes a glossy emulsion, and the turkey is only warmed through; the recipe's explicit instruction is that it must not boil once the meat is in. A hard boil after the butter goes in will split the sauce and squeeze the already-cooked meat dry.
- Slice the meat coldThin small slices off a chilled bird hold their shape; warm turkey shreds. Discard skin and gristle, and keep dark and light meat separate if you want the dark to go in a minute earlier.
- Chives and tarragonThe recipe simply says chopped, and chopped herbs of this kind would normally be fresh; use them fresh if you can. Tarragon is what gives the dish its particular flavour, so use it, but sparingly — a pinch of chopped leaves, no more.
- ServingA deep hot dish matters because there is little sauce and a thin layer cools fast. Rice, buttered toast or plain boiled potatoes take up the sauce.
Réchauffé is simply French for reheated, and in the professional kitchens this book draws on it named a whole category of second-day cookery: yesterday's roast recut, resauced and sent out under a new name rather than served again as itself. The suffix andalouse generally signals tomato in classical French garnish naming, often with sweet pepper alongside, and here it accounts for the tomato sauce base. What dates the recipe is not the technique but the assumption behind it — a household with a roast turkey substantial enough to leave a plateful of meat, a cook expected to have tomato sauce already on hand, and fresh chives and tarragon within reach.