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Turkish Stuffing for Poultry
Put two handfuls of rice into a saucepan of water and parboil it; mix in ten or twelve chestnuts peeled and cut into small pieces, one handful of pistachio nuts, and one handful of currants. Put the mixture into a saucepan with four ounces of butter, stir it well over the fire until thoroughly incorporated, season with pepper and salt, and, if liked, a little ground cinnamon, and it is then ready for use. This stuffing is used for turkeys or other birds, or anything else that is roasted whole.
A pilaf-style stuffing that comes together in a single pan. The rice goes in only half-cooked, on the assumption it will finish inside the bird, which is the detail that governs everything else.
- "Two handfuls"Read it as about a cup of raw long-grain rice, with the other handfuls at roughly a half cup each. The proportions are forgiving; the original gives no weights and nothing here depends on precision.
- Parboil means barelyFive to seven minutes in plenty of salted water, then drain hard. The grains should still be chalky at the centre so they can absorb bird juices without collapsing into paste.
- ChestnutsTen or twelve peeled chestnuts is roughly 3-4 oz. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts save an unpleasant hour; if you start with raw ones in the shell, score, roast at 425F for 20 minutes and peel while hot.
- Pistachios and currantsUse raw unsalted pistachios, not the roasted salted kind, or the seasoning will run away from you. "Currants" here are dried Zante currants, not fresh blackcurrants.
- Four ounces of butterOne stick, for roughly a quart of stuffing. It is a generous amount by modern habit but it is what carries the cinnamon and keeps the rice separate; cutting it much below half will give a drier, tighter result.
- The stuffing-in-the-bird problemRice packed into a turkey cavity sits in the temperature danger zone for a long stretch. If you stuff, pack loosely and take the centre of the stuffing to 165F, which usually means overcooked breast; baking it in a covered dish alongside, moistened with a little stock, avoids the trade-off entirely.
- YieldAbout four cups, enough for a 5-6 lb bird or as a side dish for six. Double it for a full-sized turkey.
This resembles Ottoman iç pilav, the "inner pilaf" of rice with currants, nuts and warm spice that was used to stuff poultry before roasting. Turkish versions more usually take pine nuts, and commonly include liver and onion, which this omits; pistachios, currants and cinnamon point to the same eastern Mediterranean pantry. Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maitre d'hotel who ran the Waldorf's dining rooms, put his name to this 1896 collection, which is full of such compact foreign formulas set down without ceremony.