No. 2024

Turkey a la Chipolata—Stuffed

Dinde Farcie a la Chipolata

Select a small turkey not too fat but quite fleshy; bone the entire front part leaving the breast-skin as long as possible, also the thighs; diminish the thickness of the fillets and place these pieces where there is no meat so as to equalize the thickness of the meat. Season the inside of the breasts. Cut lengthwise two veal minion fillets and fry them in butter, season and throw over some cooked fine herbs (No. 385), then let get cold; mix in with these a few fillets of veal udder, and of cooked ham and truffles, also an equal quantity of chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89). Fill the empty space with the garnishing and forcemeat mixed; press the forcemeat into the skin of the turkey and let it assume its original shape; braise it for an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half on a very slow fire, and at the last moment glaze, drain off and untruss the turkey. Dress it on a rice croustade foundation (Fig. 9a) and surround with a chipolata garnishing (No. 657) into which a good espagnole sauce (No. 414) with Madeira wine has been added reduced with the braise stock; pour a part of this sauce over the turkey, and serve the remainder separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going and a numbered reference for every component. Stripped down, this is a boned, stuffed, braised turkey with a garnish of small sausages and vegetables — achievable at home if you settle the sub-recipes first.

The hinge: even thicknessThe whole point of trimming the fillets and moving the trimmings to the bare patches is a boned bird of uniform depth, which cooks evenly and slices cleanly. Skip that and the thin end of the roll is dry before the thick end is done.
Chipolata garnishChipolata here is not simply the sausage but the classic garnish, to which his No. 657 refers: in its usual classical form, small chipolata sausages with glazed button onions, chestnuts, carrots and salt pork or bacon lardons, bound in the sauce. Modern British-style chipolatas are a fair stand-in for the sausages.
Sub-recipes you must have readyNo. 385 is his cooked fine herbs, typically shallot, mushroom and parsley cooked down in butter; No. 89 is chicken quenelle forcemeat — breast pounded with panada, egg and cream, now easiest in a food processor over ice; No. 414 is espagnole, the brown mother sauce. A well-reduced brown veal stock is the common modern substitute for the espagnole.
Veal udderTétine de veau, poached and pressed veal udder, was a standard larder fat in nineteenth-century French kitchens and is effectively unobtainable now. Fatback, blanched and diced, or a little pork back fat in the forcemeat gives the same richness.
Minion filletsThe filets mignons of veal — the two small strips under the loin, not steaks. Loin or tenderloin cut into long batons works; searing and cooling them before they go into the forcemeat keeps them as visible strips in the slice.
Braising temperature"A very slow fire" means barely trembling liquid, with the bird in a covered pan on a bed of aromatics and a few inches of stock; Ranhofer gives no temperature. Judge doneness by an internal reading of 165F in the centre of the forcemeat rather than by the clock; a boned bird may well need longer than his hour and a half.
GlazingTo glaze is to uncover the bird near the end, baste repeatedly with the reduced braising liquid, and let it set to a shine — not to apply anything sweet.
Rice croustadeA moulded base of stiff, well-cooked rice used as a plinth; it is structural, not really meant as eating. A flat platter and a bed of the garnish serve the same purpose today.
YieldA small turkey boned and stuffed this way should feed roughly ten to twelve. Note that Ranhofer serves it hot, sauced, straight from the braise.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled while chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the house style exactly: a French carême-descended construction, numbered so that a cook could chase each element through the book. À la chipolata takes its name from the Italian cipollata, a dish of onions, and the garnish keeps the glazed button onions at its core alongside chestnuts, lardons and the small sausages that later took the name in English. Boning a bird from the front and reshaping it around a forcemeat — a ballotine in all but name — was a set piece of the period. The rice croustade beneath it belongs to the same era's insistence that nothing arrive at table lying flat.