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Stuffings for Turkeys
(Turkish Stuffing) 1 Cup Rice 1 Dozen French Chestnuts 1/4 Cup Shortening 1/8 Ounce Almonds 1/4 Teaspoon each of Salt, Paprika and Ground Cinnamon Wash the rice and cook until half done in boiling, salted water; drain, add the entire ingredients, the chestnuts, which have been cooked and cut into small pieces, the almonds blanched and chopped.
A rice-and-chestnut stuffing in the Ottoman manner, written in the telegraphic style of its period: the amounts are given, the assembly is left to you. Two things need attention before you start.
- Half-cooked rice is deliberateThe rice is meant to finish inside the bird, drinking up fat and juices. Boil it about 7 minutes in well-salted water, drain hard, and stop there; fully cooked rice turns to paste by the time the turkey is done.
- Food safety in the cavityAny stuffing packed into a bird must reach 165F at its centre, and rice stuffing is dense enough that it often lags behind the meat. Pack loosely, check with a thermometer in the middle of the cavity, or bake the stuffing in a covered dish alongside.
- French chestnutsThese are marrons, the large single-kernel chestnuts. A dozen fresh ones is roughly 8 oz in the shell; vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are the practical substitute and need only be warmed and chopped.
- ShorteningIn early twentieth-century American usage this covers solid fats generally: lard, butter, or a commercial vegetable shortening. Butter suits the spicing here; a quarter cup is 4 tablespoons, and it should be melted so it coats the grains.
- The almond quantity is doubtfulAn eighth of an ounce is about a teaspoon of chopped almonds, too little to register in a cup of rice. The original may be a misprint for 1/8 pound (2 oz); use 1/4 to 1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds if you want them to be tasted.
- Season with a handA quarter teaspoon each of salt, paprika and cinnamon is light for a cup of rice. Taste the mixture before it goes near the bird.
- YieldOne cup of raw rice makes roughly 3 cups of stuffing, enough for a 5-6 lb bird or as a partial filling for a large turkey. For a 14-16 lb turkey, triple everything.
- MoistureThe recipe gives no liquid beyond the fat, relying on the bird. If you bake it separately, moisten with about a cup of stock per cup of raw rice, cover, and bake at 350F until tender.
Rice, chestnuts, currants and warm spice make up the family of Turkish stuffings known as iç pilav, the "inner pilaf" used to fill poultry and vine leaves, and it is generally traced to Ottoman palace cookery, where sweet spice in a savoury rice was ordinary rather than novel. American cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries collected such stuffings under national labels — Turkish, Spanish, Italian — as a way of offering variety at a holiday table otherwise fixed on bread, sage and onion. The cinnamon and paprika here are the tell; a domestic American stuffing of the same date would have reached for sage and pepper instead.