Ways to Cook Turkey, Make Gravy and Dressing
When people went to the market to buy poultry in the 1800s, it wasn’t usually already plucked and cleaned. And cooking in a wood burning stove was a challenge. You had to know how long and how hot your wood or coal would burn. Cooking a meal was certainly a challenge!
FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS:
ROAST TURKEY
Select a young turkey. Remove all the feathers carefully, singe it over a burning newspaper on the top of the stove, then draw* it nicely, being very careful not to break any of the internal organs. Remove the crop* carefully, cut off the head, and tie the neck close to the body by drawing the skin over it.
Now rinse the inside of the turkey with several waters, and in the next to the last, mix a teaspoonful of baking soda. Oftentimes the inside of a fowl is very sour, especially if it is not freshly killed. Soda, being cleansing, acts as a corrective, and destroys that unpleasant taste which we frequently experience in the dressing when fowls have been killed for some time.
After washing, wipe the turkey dry inside and out with a clean cloth. Rub the inside with some salt, then stuff the breast and body with “Dressing for Fowls.” [recipe below]
Sew up the turkey with a strong thread, tie the legs and wings to the body, rub it over with a little soft butter, sprinkle over some salt and pepper, and dredge with a little flour. Place it in a dripping-pan, pour in a cup of boiling water, and set in the oven. Baste the turkey often, turning it around occasionally so that every part will be uniformly baked. If any part is likely to scorch, pin over it a piece of buttered white paper. When pierced with a fork and the liquid runs out perfectly clear, the bird is done. A fifteen-pound turkey requires between three and four hours to bake. Serve with cranberry sauce.
*draw – to remove the entrails (internal organs); as to draw a chicken or other fowl.
* crop or craw – a pouch near the gullet or throat used to temporarily store food. Not all birds have a crop.
DRESSING FOR FOWLS
For an eight or ten pound turkey, cut the brown crust from slices or pieces of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf. Put it into a suitable dish and pour tepid water (not warm, for that makes it heavy) over it. Let it stand one minute, as it soaks very quickly. Now take up a handful at a time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it as you go along, in another dish. This process makes it very light. When all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your fingers. Now add about a teaspoonful each of salt, powdered summer savory, and sage. Add half a cup of melted butter and a beaten egg, or not. Work thoroughly all together, and it is ready for dressing either fowls, fish or meats. A little chopped sausage in turkey dressing is considered by some an improvement, when well incorporated with the other ingredients.
ROAST TURKEY STUFFED WITH OYSTERS
Make a stuffing of equal parts of bread and cracker crumbs rolled fine. Season highly with salt, pepper, and melted butter, and add a pint of raw oysters with their liquor. Add also two eggs well-beaten. Stuff the turkey loosely, truss, and roast, in a covered roaster. Turn over when brown on top. Make a gravy with the drippings, using browned flour to thicken.
GRAVY FOR TURKEY
When you put the turkey in to roast, put the neck, heart, liver and gizzard into a stewpan with a pint of water. Boil until they become quite tender. Take them out of the water, chop the heart and gizzard, mash the liver and throw away the neck. Return the chopped heart, gizzard and liver to the liquor in which they were stewed. Set it to one side, and when the turkey is done, it should be added to the gravy that dripped from the turkey, having first skimmed off the fat from the surface of the dripping-pan. Set it all over the fire, boil three minutes and thicken with flour.
BONED TURKEY
Boil a turkey in as little water as possible until the bones can be easily separated from the meat. Remove all the skin, then slice, mixing together the light and dark parts. Season with salt and pepper. Take the liquor in which the fowl was boiled, having kept it warm, and pour it on the meat. Mix well and shape it like a loaf of bread. Wrap in a cloth and press with a heavy weight for a few hours. Cut in thin slices when served.
TURKEY LOAF
Chop fine the meat of a cold turkey and to each cupful, add one-third cup of cracker crumbs and one egg. Mix thoroughly and add enough of the stuffing to season. Shape into a loaf, roll in cracker crumbs, dot with butter, and bake for half an hour.
JELLIED TURKEY
Put a tough turkey into cold water to cover, bring to the boil, and cook until the meat slips from the bones. Remove the meat, chop it fine, and return the bones to the stock. Simmer for two hours, and strain through cheese-cloth. There should be two cupfuls of the liquid.
Add one package of gelatin that has been soaked and dissolved, and season with salt, pepper, grated onion, lemon-juice, and Kitchen Bouquet.* Dip individual molds in cold water and put a slice of hard-boiled egg or pickled beet into the bottom of each one. Put in a little of the jelly and let harden. Fill the molds nearly to the brim with the minced and seasoned turkey, cover with the jelly, and set away to cool. Serve with mayonnaise.
*Kitchen Bouquet – a browning and seasoning sauce used to flavor gravies and other foods since the late 19th century.
ESCALLOPED TURKEY AND SAUSAGE
Butter a baking-dish and fill it with alternate layers of cold cooked minced turkey and sausage. Fill the dish with stock or gravy to moisten, cover thickly with crumbs, and pour over half a cup or more of cream or milk with which a well-beaten egg has been mixed. Season with pepper and salt, dot with butter, and bake covered. Sprinkle with minced parsley before serving.
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