Many years ago my wife and I started making turkey for SCA events, starting when someone told us that turkey wasn’t period. So of course we couldn’t let that stand and did the research. Now of course we were normally doing this for large events or for things where oven space was at a premium, or time at a minimum, so we’ve never been able to do it properly in a coffin. So I was very glad that the vote on my poll was for turkey, because this time I get to make it in a coffin.
Culinary Night spread
My recipe for roasted turkey (1590) is fairly simple:
- Turkey
- Bacon enough to cover it
- Salt
- Pepper
- Cloves
- Butter – optional
- Debone turkey
- Season turkey
- Lard turkey
- put turkey in a coffin
- Bake turkey
This time I was only making turkey for about 6-10 people so I made a turkey thigh and leg.
Deboned leg and thigh
Parboil the turkey first
Then I made a coffin. I’ve started using Mistress Eulalia’s recipe for when I need a quick coffin as a baking dish rather than one that will be eaten. Mostly because I don’t want to be buying a dozen eggs every time I need a coffin.
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- Nothing but lard, water, and flour. I think I may start adding salt to improve the taste
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- First I made a crimped base, this was obviously too small, but I thought I could use it to attach my wall
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- Rolling out the wall
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- Hey it worked! Into the oven to blind bake
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- And rapidly out of the oven because it was collapsing. Guess no blind baking for this one
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- Larding the turkey
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- all ready
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- Lid’s on and time to add the butter
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- That looks halfway decent, not as nice as I was hoping, but practice makes perfect
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- Into the oven
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- baking time
It turned out really really well.
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- Before opening the pie
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- The pie is opened, look at that tender turkey kept moist by way way too much bacon
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- Moving some of the bacon to the side
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- Look at that colour on there, such a tasty dinner
I learned a few things from doing this. First, the coffin contains the bacon grease really really well. So in effect you’re roasting the turkey in bacon grease. Second, a bacon infused crust tastes pretty good, even though it’s not as tasty as my standard coffin recipe, but I might recommend doing this with the egg based crust, I think it would taste amazing. Finally, I need to do more research on pie dolly’s, and what they would have used for a pie of a size to hold a turkey. Maybe a trap?
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