3. TO BOIL A TURKEY.
Today we get you properly in the Christmas mood with this, the third in our series of delicious recipes first published in the pages of Mrs Williamson’s 1854 book The Practice of Cookery and Pastry, Adapted to the Business of Every Day Life.
For more on this remarkable local figure, see Barclay Price’s article in Issue 289.
Having cleaned your turkey nicely, draw and truss it, with the legs drawn in under the skin, and fasten them with a bit of tape round the joints, and tie it round the rump, to prevent the legs from starting.
Have a stuffing prepared with a few chopped oysters, and put it where the crop was taken out; sew it up, put your turkey into a pot which will just hold it, with the breast down.
Cover it with cold water, add a tea-cupful of milk, skim it when it comes to boil, draw it to the side of the fire, and let it boil slowly. If the turkey is young, one hour will boil it, but if an old one, it will require two hours.
When you dish it, take off the tape, and serve with either oyster, celery, or plain white sauce, with small white turnips and cauliflower.
ANOTHER WAY TO TRUSS A TURKEY FOR BOILING.
Have a good large turkey, bone it, take a pickled tongue, and boil it for one hour.
Skin it, trim off all the fat, turn up the point of the tongue, place the tongue into the inside of the turkey, putting the root-end of the tongue in the break. Cut a slit in the thin part of the bird, below the apron, to let the point of the tongue appear.
Have a stuffing of force-meat ready, stuff it neatly, and sew it. Run a skewer through the turkey and tongue, to keep the turkey in a proper shape.
Tie it into a floured cloth, put it in boiling water, and let it boil slowly but constantly for two hours.
Dish it, and serve with white sauce and boiled cauliflower.
[Image courtesy of the excellent Neil Cooks Grigson.]