No. 2029

Turkey, French Style

Dinde a la Francaise

Choose a small fat turkey; draw, singe and clean it well, extracting all the pin feathers; break the breastbone, remove it and fill the breast with an Engish bread dressing (No. 61); sew up the skin underneath and truss it for an entree (No. 178); lay it in a braziere of the same dimensions as the turkey, having it lined with slices of fat pork, moisten to half its height with mirepoix stock (No. 419) and let the liquid come to a boil; then cover the turkey with a thick buttered paper and cook for an hour and a half to two hours with the braziere well closed; simmer slowly while basting frequently. At the last moment drain off the turkey, untruss and dress on a rice foundation (Fig. 9a) surrounding it with clusters of cauliflower, mushroom heads, braised celery, glazed carrots and stuffed cucumbers, or else both, all being arranged in separate groups. Cover the breasts with some veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with the stock already strained and skimmed, serving at the same time a sauce-boat of the same sauce.

← No. 2028 Turkey, American Style—Roasted Turkey & Guinea Fowl No. 2030 Turkey with Cepes →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's turkey is braised, not roasted, which is the whole point: a small bird cooked slowly in a covered pot with pork fat and aromatic stock, then dressed with vegetables in separate groups. The cross-references belong to the rest of The Epicurean, and each of them can be replaced with something standard.

The hinge: keep it at a bare simmerThe liquid is brought to a boil once, then held below it for the rest of the cooking. A rolling boil in a braising pan will shred the leg meat and turn the breast dry and stringy before the stuffing is anywhere near done. A covered pot in a 325F oven holds the right temperature more reliably than a burner.
BraziereA braising pan: heavy, close-fitting lid, no larger than it needs to be. Ranhofer specifies one "of the same dimensions as the turkey" so the stock reaches halfway up the bird without your having to use gallons of it. An oval enameled cast-iron pot is the modern equivalent.
Bird size and donenessRanhofer gives no weight; "a small fat turkey" would plausibly be in the 8 to 10 lb range, which suits the stated hour and a half to two hours. Because the breast is stuffed, check both the thigh and the center of the dressing with a thermometer and look for 165F in each. A larger bird will need considerably longer and is better suited to a different method.
Mirepoix stock (No. 419)Ranhofer's version is built on aromatic vegetables such as carrot, onion and celery with ham or pork trimmings and herbs, moistened and cooked down with wine; see No. 419 for his own proportions. A good unsalted brown poultry or veal stock simmered twenty minutes with those vegetables and a splash of wine will stand in.
English bread dressing (No. 61)Broadly a plain forcemeat of soaked and pressed bread crumbs, onion softened in butter, fat and herbs, bound with egg; see No. 61 for Ranhofer's own version. It is a mild, dense stuffing meant to slice, not the loose herbed cubes of an American holiday table.
Fat pork and the buttered paperThe pot is lined with sheets of fatback or unsmoked salt pork, which keeps the bird off the metal and enriches the liquid. The "thick buttered paper" is a cartouche: parchment cut to the diameter of the pot, buttered side down, laid directly on the turkey to slow evaporation and stop the exposed skin drying.
Removing the breastboneCutting out the keel and breastbone lets the breast be filled and sewn shut, and lets the whole bird sit low and flat in the pan. It also makes carving trivial. A boning knife and ten minutes will do it; a butcher will do it faster if asked.
The rice foundationFig. 9a is a socle, a molded base of stiff cooked rice that raised the bird for presentation. It was structural scenery rather than dinner. Serving the turkey on a warmed platter with the vegetables grouped around it gives the same effect without the archaeology.
Velouté (No. 415)A blond roux slackened with white stock. Here it is finished with the strained, skimmed braising liquid reduced down, which is where all the flavor of the dish has gone. Skim the fat properly before reducing or the sauce will break greasy.
YieldAn 8 to 10 lb bird with stuffing and five garnishes serves eight to ten. Rest the turkey twenty minutes under foil while the sauce is reduced.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the pairing of this recipe with No. 2028, "Turkey, American Style," looks deliberate: the American bird is roasted, the French one has its breastbone cut out, is stuffed, braised in a closed pot and then reassembled on a rice plinth with cauliflower, glazed carrots, braised celery and stuffed cucumbers arranged in separate clusters, "all being arranged in separate groups." Turkey itself is a New World bird that had reached French kitchens in the sixteenth century and was thoroughly naturalized there by Ranhofer's day, so "a la francaise" describes the treatment and the plating, not the ingredient. The cross-reference numbers running through the text are characteristic of the book, which was built as a working system for a professional brigade rather than a set of self-contained recipes.