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Roast Turkey, Cranberry Sauce (Procure a nice tender turkey)
Procure a nice, tender turkey of about eight pounds. Remove the three sinews in each leg of the turkey by making an incision with a small, sharp knife on the under part, beginning one inch above the first leg joint and cutting upward for two inches right alongside the bone. Turn up the skin, then insert a small ice pick beneath the sinews and twist around until cleanly drawn, but only draw out one at a time. Remove the neck and cut the legs off one inch from the first joint. Singe, draw, wipe dry; truss with a needle from the wing to the leg. Season with a tablespoon salt, well sprinkled all over, and a light teaspoon white pepper. Cover the breasts with thin slices of larding pork. Lay the bird on a roasting pan, pour into the pan four tablespoons cold water. Place in the oven to roast for one hour and twenty minutes, being careful to baste it frequently with its own gravy while roasting, and turning it around once in a while to let get a good colour all over. Remove it from the oven, untruss and dress on a hot dish. Carefully skim the fat from the gravy, then strain the gravy over the turkey and serve with cranberry sauce in a bowl separately.
An eight-pound bird in eighty minutes is the one figure here that will not survive contact with a thermometer. Everything else is sound turn-of-the-century roasting practice.
- Roasting time and temperatureThe recipe names no oven heat, so any figure is inference; the short time implies a fairly brisk oven. An 8 lb bird with an empty cavity at 325F needs roughly 2 1/2 to 3 hours, and even at high heat 1 hour 20 minutes will leave the thighs short. Cook to 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone, and rest 20 minutes before carving.
- The leg sinewsThis is the step worth keeping. The six tendons in a turkey's drumsticks turn to wire in the heat; drawing them out through a small slit above the joint, one at a time with a skewer or the tip of a steel, makes the dark meat genuinely edible. Most supermarket birds still have them.
- Larding porkFresh unsmoked pork fatback, sliced thin and laid over the breast. Salt pork rinsed of its cure, or thin unsmoked bacon, does the same job. Remove it for the last 30 minutes so the skin colours.
- Singe, draw, wipe drySingeing burns off pinfeathers over a flame; drawing means removing the innards. Both are done for you now. Wiping dry still matters — a damp bird steams rather than browns.
- Four tablespoons of waterBarely a film in the pan, and deliberately so: it keeps drippings from scorching without poaching the underside. Do not be tempted to add a cup of stock, which will steam the legs.
- Basting and turningFrequent basting is period doctrine; it does little for moisture and does help colour. Turning the pan for even browning is the useful half of the instruction.
- TrussingA trussing needle and string from wing to leg. A simple tie of the drumsticks and wings tucked beneath does as well, and a loosely trussed bird cooks more evenly through the thigh.
- SeasoningA full tablespoon of salt on an 8 lb bird works out to under half a teaspoon per pound, less than the modern rule of thumb of about a teaspoon of kosher salt per pound. Applied a day ahead and left uncovered in the refrigerator, salt dries the skin and seasons the meat throughout.
- YieldAn 8 lb turkey serves six to eight with sides. The cranberry sauce is assumed known and is served separately, in a bowl, as the recipe directs.