No. 2033

Turkey Giblets a la Salamander

Abatis de Dinde a la Salamandre

Bone the cleaned pinions and cut them into half inch squares; divide the neck at every joint and put all the pieces into a saucepan with clarified butter (No. 16); fry and besprinkle with flour, and cook again for a few moments; moisten with stock (No. 194a) and season with salt, pepper, a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123), and some small onions. When the meats are done add the liver after frying it in butter, also some minced mushrooms; suppress the parsley and onions, thicken the sauce with a few egg-yolks, cream and butter, then put back the onions. Butter a baking dish, bestrew over with bread-crumbs and fill it with the stewed giblets; dredge bread-raspings and grated parmesan on top, pour over butter and brown under a salamander (Fig. 123), then serve.

← No. 2032 Turkey with White Oyster Sauce Turkey & Guinea Fowl No. 2034 Turkey Giblets, Peasant Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's giblet stew is a fricassee finished under fierce top heat, so the two things that matter are the egg-yolk liaison and the browning. Everything else is straightforward braising.

The hinge: the liaison must not boilOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, the sauce holds only below a simmer -- around 180F. Temper the yolks with a ladle of hot sauce first, return the pan to low heat, and stir until it coats a spoon. A boil scrambles it and no amount of whisking brings it back.
Salamander means broilerThe salamander in Fig. 123 was an iron plate heated in the fire and held over the dish. Use an overhead broiler or salamander at full heat, with the dish 4-6 inches below, for 3-5 minutes -- just long enough to colour the crumbs and parmesan. The filling is already cooked and hot.
Pinions and neckPinions are the wing joints. Boning them raw is fiddly work; a small boning knife and patience is the whole trick. The neck is chopped through the joints and cooked bone-in; Ranhofer does not say the meat is picked off before assembly.
Clarified butter and stockNo. 16 is simply butter melted and the milk solids skimmed and decanted off; it fries without burning. No. 194 a is one of Ranhofer's stocks -- an unsalted poultry or veal stock does the job.
Garnished bunch of parsleyNo. 123 is a bouquet garni: parsley stalks with thyme and bay tied in a bundle, sometimes with a strip of leek or a clove-stuck onion. It is lifted out before the sauce is finished.
Bread-raspingsRaspings are the dried, rasped crust of stale bread -- coarser and drier than soft crumbs, closer to modern dried breadcrumbs. Panko is a reasonable stand-in for the topping; use fine dry crumbs for buttering the dish.
TimingWing joints and neck want something in the region of 45-60 minutes at a bare simmer to become tender. The liver is fried separately and added at the very end -- more than a minute or two of stewing turns it grainy. The small onions want to go back in whole and intact, so cook them gently.
YieldThe giblets from one large turkey serve two as a course, four as an appetiser. If you are making this from saved giblets, freeze them as they accumulate; two birds' worth fills a small gratin dish properly.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summing-up of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its poultry section shows the frugal underside of a grand kitchen: a restaurant roasting turkeys by the dozen accumulated necks, pinions, livers and gizzards that had to earn their keep. Abatis -- modern French abattis, from abattre, to knock down or cut away -- is the standard term for the parts taken off a bird in dressing it, and dishes aux abattis are long established in French cookery. The salamandre of the title is a piece of equipment rather than a style: a thick iron disc or plate on a long handle, heated red in the coals and passed over a dish to glaze the top, in use long before gas-fired overhead grills took the name. Ranhofer's neighbouring numbers, No. 2032 with oyster sauce and No. 2034 a la paysanne, show the same offcuts dressed up and dressed down; this one splits the difference, a peasant stew given a gratin crust and parmesan.