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Turkey, Agriculteur
Procure a small, tender turkey of about six or seven pounds, cut off head and feet, singe, draw and wipe. Cut the liver, heart, gizzard and lungs in small square pieces. Place in a small saucepan with an ounce of chopped raw ham and a small chopped white onion, pour in a tablespoon melted butter and briskly brown for six minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile, then add two ounces raw rice, a bean chopped garlic, half a teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, a crushed, peeled, fresh red tomato, two gills water, a half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper and a saltspoon ground thyme. Mix all well together and boil for ten minutes, then add an egg yolk and sharply mix again for a minute. Remove, stuff turkey with the force, truss, place it in a large saucepan with six each small new carrots and turnips, six small white onions and two small, clean stalks celery. Tie in a bunch one leek, two branches parsley, one branch chervil, two bay leaves, two cloves, a sprig thyme, and add to turkey. Pour in enough water to cover, season with a tablespoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, cover pan and gently boil for forty-five minutes, then add six even-sized, small, peeled potatoes and let boil for forty-five minutes longer. Lift up turkey, place on a large dish, untruss, dress vegetables around, except the bouquet, pour a little of the broth and sprinkle a little parsley over, and serve with one and a half gills hot tomato sauce separately.
N. B. Strain the broth into a stone jar and use for white broth.
A whole small turkey poached in its own vegetable broth, stuffed with a giblet-and-rice forcemeat. The method is sound; most of what needs translating is units, offal and doneness.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of water is one cup and the tomato sauce served alongside is about three-quarters of a cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon.
- A bean of garlic"A bean chopped garlic" means a clove, chopped; probably a literal rendering of the French gousse, which means a pod. "The force" later in the recipe is the forcemeat you have just made.
- LungsTurkey lungs are not sold and are removed at processing. Use the liver, heart and gizzard that come in the cavity, and add an extra ounce of ham if you want the volume back.
- Don't pack the stuffingTwo ounces of rice boiled ten minutes is still half-raw and will keep swelling inside the bird. Fill the cavity loosely, no more than two-thirds, or the stuffing will burst the trussing and cloud the broth.
- Doneness, not the clockNinety minutes of gentle simmering suits a 6-7 lb bird, but check with a thermometer: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh and, importantly, 165F at the centre of the rice stuffing, which is the last thing to come up to temperature.
- Gentle boil means simmerHold the water at a bare shiver, around 180-190F. A rolling boil at this length shreds the breast and turns the broth cloudy. Skim the scum in the first ten minutes if you want a clear broth worth keeping.
- The vegetablesCarrots, turnips, onions and celery go in from the start and will be very soft after ninety minutes; the potatoes join for the last forty-five. If you prefer them intact, add the roots at the halfway mark with the potatoes.
- The brothThe stone jar of the N. B. is a cold-cellar instruction. Strain the broth, cool it quickly in a shallow pan, then refrigerate or freeze; it is an excellent light poultry stock, and the fat lifts off solid the next day.
- YieldA 6-7 lb bird with the vegetables and stuffing serves six to eight.
À l'agriculteur — farmer's style — appears in the classical French repertoire as a garnish of the plain root vegetables of a kitchen garden: carrots, turnips, small onions, celery, potatoes. Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, collected recipes from many national and regional styles in The International Cook Book, and this entry reads as French bourgeois cooking rather than restaurant work: the whole bird poached in water that then becomes the household's stock, nothing thrown away, the giblets folded into the stuffing. Boiled or poached turkey was more common in the period than it is now, and it suits a small bird such as the six- or seven-pound one specified here. The closing note about the stone jar is a reminder of the pre-refrigeration kitchen, where glazed earthenware in a cool larder was a standard keeping vessel for broth.