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Turkey Hash Au Gratin
Peel off all the meat from the turkey left from Friday night and mince very finely. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a small saucepan, add two tablespoons flour, stir well, then add three-quarters of a pint hot milk; season with half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg; mix well with a whisk until it comes to a boil, then add the minced turkey, with half ounce good butter, mix well and cook for five minutes. Pour the preparation into a deep baking dish; sprinkle a tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese over the hash and set in the oven to bake for ten minutes. Remove and serve.
A béchamel-bound turkey hash from the era when cookbooks were organised as day-by-day menus and Saturday's dinner was built from Friday's roast. The measurements are all workable once translated.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of cayenne is half a teaspoon, which is aggressive in a dish this size; a quarter teaspoon is closer to modern taste, and the nutmeg stays at a scant quarter teaspoon.
- Three-quarters of a pintIn this American book that is 12 fluid ounces, or 1½ cups of hot milk. With 2 tablespoons flour it gives a fairly loose sauce, which is what you want since it will tighten in the oven.
- The roux is the hingeCook the butter and flour together a minute before the milk goes in, and add the milk hot, whisking, or the sauce will be pasty and taste of raw flour. It must actually reach a boil to thicken properly.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Ten minutes only browns the top if the oven is hot: 425F, or run it under the broiler for two or three minutes once it is bubbling at the edges.
- Mince, not shredThe instruction to mince very finely is deliberate. Coarse shreds of leftover turkey turn stringy in a white sauce; a fine mince disperses and the dish eats like a creamed hash rather than sauced meat.
- Dark meat and skin"All the meat" from a carcass includes thigh, wing and the scraps along the back, which carry the flavour here. Discard the skin, which will not mince and turns rubbery in the sauce.
- CheeseA single tablespoon of Parmesan is a thin veil, in the French sense of gratin rather than a cheese crust. Two or three tablespoons, or a mix with fine dry breadcrumbs, browns more reliably.
- Quantity and yieldNo weight of turkey is specified. About 2 cups of minced meat, roughly 10 to 12 ounces, suits this amount of sauce and serves three or four.
The International Cook Book was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York; the opening reference to "the turkey left from Friday night" points back to an earlier meal, and nothing was expected to be bought for the dish. Au gratin here means what it meant in French professional kitchens of the period: a dish finished with cheese or crumbs and browned briefly on top, not the casserole-in-a-dish sense the phrase later took on in English. The technique itself is straightforward béchamel, a sauce widely used in nineteenth-century leftover cookery, since it made small amounts of cold roast meat stretch into a hot dish that could be sent to table in the vessel it baked in.