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Truffle and Chestnut Stuffing
Peel off the thick outer skin of the chestnuts, put them into a saucepan with a bay leaf, a lump of salt, and plenty of coriander seeds, cover them with water and boil until nearly tender. Drain the chestnuts, and peel off the inner skin; for every half pound of chestnuts, weighed after they are boiled and peeled, allow one-half pound of fat bacon, one-fourth pound of truffles, and the chestnuts, all cut up into small pieces, season to taste with salt, pepper and spices, and add a little each of powdered thyme and marjoram, toss the mixture for a few minutes longer over the fire, and it is then ready for use.
A rich, high-fat stuffing built on a one-to-one ratio of chestnuts to fat bacon. The whole thing hinges on getting the chestnuts peeled cleanly, which is a matter of heat and timing more than skill.
- Peel the inner skin hotThe papery inner skin (the pellicle) slips off while the nuts are still steaming and clings stubbornly once they cool. Drain and work through them a few at a time, keeping the rest under the hot cooking liquid.
- Score before the first boilThe "thick outer skin" is the glossy shell, which the recipe has you remove before boiling. If peeling raw shells whole is awkward, an X cut through the shell on the flat side is a common modern alternative, though it departs from what the text asks for.
- The coriander waterBoil in salted water with a bay leaf and a generous amount of coriander seed -- a tablespoon or so -- checking from about 15 minutes on, until a nut yields to a knife tip but has not begun to crumble. Overcooked chestnuts fall apart when you cut them, and this stuffing wants distinct pieces.
- Weigh after peelingThe proportions are keyed to peeled, boiled weight, and shell and skin account for roughly 15 to 20 percent. Starting with about 10 oz of chestnuts in the shell should leave you around a half pound.
- "Fat bacon"This means unsmoked fatty pork, closer to fresh pork belly or salt pork than to modern breakfast bacon. Smoked supermarket bacon will overwhelm the truffle; if it is all you have, blanch it first and cut the quantity down.
- TrufflesA quarter pound of fresh black truffle is a luxury purchase now in a way it was not on the Waldorf's larder shelf. Preserved truffle peelings with their juice, or a smaller quantity of fresh truffle stretched with cremini mushrooms, keeps the dish in reach; truffle oil is not a substitute in a mixture that will be roasted.
- "Spices"Left undefined. In a mixture of this kind it most likely points to a warm blend of the quatre epices sort: pepper, nutmeg, clove and a little ginger or cinnamon. A scant quarter teaspoon total for this quantity is plenty.
- The final tossOnly a few minutes over the fire, enough to render some bacon fat and marry the seasonings. The mixture is not cooked through at this stage, so it is a stuffing for a bird or roast that will go on to reach a safe internal temperature, not something to eat as is.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 lb of stuffing per half pound of peeled chestnuts, which will fill a duck or a pair of small birds, less than you would want for a large capon. It is very rich; count on a modest spoonful per person.
Chestnuts and truffles together are a signature of turn-of-the-century French service, and the Waldorf, where Oscar Tschirky presided as maitre d'hotel, worked squarely in that idiom, putting Escoffier-era dishes in front of New York money. Boiling the chestnuts in aromatic water with coriander and bay seasons them from the outside in, and the one-to-one pairing with fat pork puts this closer to a forcemeat than to the bread stuffings common in American cookbooks of the same decades. That truffles appear here by the quarter pound, without comment or apology, suggests European black truffles were an expensive ingredient in such a kitchen rather than an unattainable one.