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TURKEY PINIONS, STEWED (another way)
Prepare the pinions as in the preceding recipe. Fry them in butter or bacon-fat till they are lightly browned, then pour some nicely-flavoured white stock over them, and simmer gently until done enough. Lay them between two dishes, and let them remain until cold. Strain the gravy, and free it entirely from fat. Boil quickly until it is so much reduced that it will be jelly when cold. When the pinions are to be served, warm them in the gravy, and let the gravy simmer again until it is quite thick. Put the pinions on a dish, lightly cover them with some of the gravy, and send the rest to table in a tureen. This dish may be sent to table with spinach, or with a puree of chestnuts or lentils. Time, an hour and a half to stew the pinions. Sufficient, one set of pinions for one or two persons.
A frugal Victorian dish built on the two wing joints most cooks now throw in the stockpot. The technique is sound and the result is essentially turkey wings in a glossy homemade glaze.
- What a pinion isThe pinion is the outer part of the wing — the tip and the joint beyond the drumette — mostly skin, cartilage and collagen. Butchers who break down whole birds may sell them cheaply; otherwise buy whole turkey wings and use the two outer sections, reserving the drumettes for something else. The recipe itself reckons one set of pinions as a serving for one or two people.
- White stockAn unroasted stock — veal, chicken or turkey bones simmered with onion, carrot, celery and a bouquet, no browning. It matters here because the whole point is a pale, clean jelly. A light supermarket chicken stock works; a dark beef stock does not.
- The hinge: gelatin, not thickenerNo flour or starch appears anywhere. The body comes from collagen — the pinions' own plus the stock's — so the reduction must be strong enough to set firm when cold. If it stays syrupy in the refrigerator, the stock was too thin; reduce further or start with a gelatinous homemade stock.
- Degrease cold, not hotChilling the strained gravy lets the fat cap solidify so it lifts off in one piece. This is more thorough than skimming hot, and pinion skin renders a lot of fat that would otherwise break the glaze.
- Cooling between two dishesCovering the pinions between two dishes keeps them from drying as they cool and presses them lightly for reheating. Do this in the refrigerator rather than on a counter — the original assumed a cold larder, and cooked poultry should not sit for hours at room temperature.
- TimingAn hour and a half of gentle simmering is about right for turkey wing joints, which need long moist heat to soften the connective tissue. Judge by feel: the meat should slip from the small bones. Modern turkeys are younger and may be done nearer an hour.
- Reheating and servingWarm the pinions through in the gravy, then reduce again until it coats a spoon. Serve hot, reheated right through (165F at the centre). The suggested accompaniments — spinach, chestnut or lentil purée — suit a very concentrated sauce.
Cassell's belongs to a school of English cookery writing that treated no part of a bird as beneath notice. A large roast turkey left behind giblets, neck, feet and pinions, and a competent kitchen was expected to turn each into a separate small dish rather than a stockpot's worth of scraps. Stewed pinions may well have belonged at the humbler end of the same tradition that produced rago cebe6ts of ox palates and calves' ears. The method here is simple enough: reduce a degreased braising liquor until it will set as jelly, then use it as both sauce and glaze. That the book bothers to specify "one set of pinions for one or two persons" says a good deal about the scale of Victorian frugality.