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Strawbery Punch
Prepare a lemon-water ice. Press through a cheesecloth into a bowl half pint preserved strawberries, add two drops carmine colouring and one tablespoon Swiss kirschwasser and add the mixture to the water ice in the freezer. Thoroughly mix with a wooden spoon, let rest for ten minutes and serve in six sherbet glasses.
BROILED SQUAB TURKEY WITH GRILLED SWEET POTATOES Procure a fine, tender squab turkey of five pounds. Cut off the legs at the first joints, singe, draw, split in half through back and cut off the neck. Open the bird, tear out the breast bone and thoroughly wipe the inside. Season well all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Gently crack the bones between the second joint and body. Thoroughly rub the turkey with a tablespoon oil. Arrange on a double broiler and broil for twelve minutes on each side. Remove, have six freshly prepared, lightly buttered toasts on a large hot dish; place the turkey over the toasts and arrange the grilled sweet potatoes around. Spread a little maitre d'hotel butter over and serve.
Two menu items have run together here: a frozen strawberry punch meant as a mid-meal course, and a broiled young turkey. The punch is straightforward; the turkey timing is the part that needs attention.
- Half pint of preserved strawberriesThat is one cup of strawberries put up in heavy syrup, pressed through cheesecloth to give a sweetened puree without seeds. Jarred preserves or a thick strawberry jam thinned with a little syrup gives the same result; fresh berries alone will taste thin against the lemon ice.
- The water iceA lemon water ice is sugar syrup and lemon juice, churned — no dairy, no egg. Filippini assumed a hand-crank freezer, so "add the mixture to the water ice in the freezer" means folding the puree into the ice while it is still soft in the canister. With a modern machine, add it during the last minute of churning, then give it the ten minutes' rest the recipe calls for before serving.
- Carmine colouringCochineal-based red, still sold as carmine or E120. Two drops are cosmetic only, correcting the dull brick colour that cooked strawberries take on. Omit it with no effect on flavour.
- KirschwasserUnsweetened cherry brandy, not a cherry liqueur. A tablespoon in six glasses is a seasoning, but alcohol lowers the freezing point, so do not increase it or the punch will stay slushy.
- Squab turkeyA very young turkey, here five pounds — the poultry equivalent of a spring chicken. Modern supermarket turkeys are generally a good deal larger, so use two large chicken halves, a pair of poussins, or a small heritage bird if you can get one.
- The broiling time is the hingeTwelve minutes a side will not cook five pounds of split bird through. Broil to colour the skin, then finish in a 400F oven and take the bird to 165F/74C in the thickest part of the thigh; expect 45 minutes to an hour in total for a bird this size. Poultry from a 1906 kitchen is not a reason to trust a 24-minute total.
- Double broilerA hinged wire grill that held the bird flat between two surfaces so it could be turned in one motion. A wire rack over a sheet pan under a broiler element does the job, weighted with a second pan if you want the flattening effect.
- Maitre d'hotel butterSoftened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Make it ahead, chill it, and put slices on the hot bird at the table so it melts down into the toasts.
- YieldThe punch fills six sherbet glasses. A five-pound bird with toasts and sweet potatoes serves four generously, or six as one course in a long menu of the kind this book was built around.
Frozen punch of this sort was not a drink but a course. In formal service of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a lightly alcoholic ice — punch a la romaine being the best-known example — was set down between the heavy roast and the game or poultry, on the theory that it refreshed the palate and, less politely, made room for more food. Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, worked in a menu-driven tradition, which may be why a strawberry punch and a broiled squab turkey sit shoulder to shoulder in a single paragraph with no break. The turkey itself points to a market that has since disappeared, one in which birds were sold by age and stage as much as by weight, so that a five-pound "squab" turkey was a recognised commodity and not, as it would be now, a special order.