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Hot Turkey Sandwich
Between thin slices of lightly buttered toast, place slices of warm turkey breast; over same pour a hot gravy made of slightly thickened turkey stock. Garnish with a pickle.
A hot open sandwich of the kind that made its way from carving-table leftovers onto lunch counters. The only technical demand is the gravy, which the original assumes you can make from turkey stock without further instruction.
- "Slightly thickened" gravyRoughly one tablespoon of flour per cup of hot turkey stock, cooked in butter or pan drippings for a minute or two before the stock goes in. The intent is a sauce that coats the meat and soaks the toast without sitting on top of it like a paste; it should pour freely from a ladle.
- Toast, not breadThe toast is structural. Untoasted bread collapses into wet dough under hot gravy within a minute. Toast it a shade darker than you would for breakfast, and butter it while hot so the fat seals the surface.
- Warm the turkey, do not cook it againSlices of cooked breast reheated in a hot oven or pan dry out fast. Lay them in the hot gravy for a minute off direct heat, or warm them covered with a spoonful of stock, then plate.
- Assemble at the last momentThis does not hold. Toast, meat and gravy should meet on the plate seconds before it goes to the table.
- The pickleIn a book of this date this was most likely a small sour cucumber pickle or a gherkin. It is there for acid against the fat, not for decoration, so use something genuinely sour rather than a sweet bread-and-butter slice.
- QuantityThe recipe gives no amounts. Figure two slices of toast and about three ounces of sliced breast per serving, with a half cup of gravy.
- If you have no turkey stockThe carcass simmered with an onion, a carrot and a bay leaf for two hours gives a better result than chicken stock from a carton, which is thinner in flavour and often saltier than the gravy can carry.
This is a leftovers sandwich promoted to a menu item. Eva Greene Fuller's collection dates from the era when the sandwich was expanding rapidly beyond the cold-meat-between-bread definition, driven by lunch counters, tea rooms and department-store restaurants that needed dishes a cook could assemble quickly from what was already prepared. The hot sandwich under gravy -- here still a closed sandwich, the turkey placed between two slices of toast -- used up roast meat and arrived hot enough to justify a knife and fork. Its descendant is the American diner hot turkey plate, usually served over mashed potato as well, which survived long after most of the fancier sandwiches in books like this one were forgotten. The garnish instruction is worth noticing too, since pickles turn up frequently as a plate garnish in books of the period.