No. 2039

Turkey Wings with Celery and Chestnuts

Ailerons de Dinde au Celeri et aux Marrons

Take twelve scalded and very white wings without any pin feathers whatever, singe and bone all the fleshy first part, then soak them. Line a saucepan with slices of fat pork, lay on the wings and moisten with mirepoix stock (No. 419) placing more fat pork on top. For young turkey wings it will take three-quarters of an hour, but when the birds begin to get harder the wings require one hour or more cooking. Just when ready to serve, drain well and range them in a dish, strain, skim and reduce the stock, clarify, strain once more through a napkin. Havo some chestnuts braised with celery prepared as follows: Put some skinned chestnuts into a saucepan with as much celery stalks cut in inch and a quarter squares, having it already well blanched; moisten with stock (No. 194a) and cook on a slow fire until both chestnuts and celery can crush easily under a pressure. Reduce in a sautior a little espagnole sauce (No. 414) with the stock and pour it over the chestnuts, then finish cooking slowly, season to taste, and pour over the wings when ready.

← No. 2038 Turkey Wings Fricassed and Baked Turkey & Guinea Fowl No. 2040 Turkey Wings with Risot—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braise built on parts most butchers now discard, with two components cooked separately and married at the last minute. The hinge is the barding: turkey wings have almost no fat of their own, and without the pork above and below they dry out long before the connective tissue softens.

AileronsThe word means the wings; in French kitchen usage the winglet or pinion. Ranhofer bones only "the fleshy first part", the section a modern butcher calls the drumette. The recipe calls for twelve wings, so ask for wing portions or joint them yourself and save the tips for stock.
Scalded and white, no pin feathersThis assumes a bird plucked at home. Supermarket wings arrive already scalded and clean; you only need to check for stray pin feathers and pass them over a gas flame to singe, which takes seconds.
Boning the first jointSlit the skin along the bone, scrape the meat free and pull the bone out from the thick end, leaving the flesh in a pocket. It is fiddly and much easier on wings that have been chilled hard.
Fat porkSheets of fresh pork back fat, sold as barding fat or fatback — not bacon, which would cure and smoke the whole dish. Unsalted salt pork rinsed and blanched will do; failing that, thin sheets of caul fat or a generous film of rendered pork fat.
The stocks and sauceMirepoix stock (No. 419) is a brown stock enriched with the diced carrot, onion, celery and ham trimmings of a mirepoix; No. 194a is a plain white or brown broth. Espagnole (No. 414) is the classic brown mother sauce, flour-thickened and long-simmered. A good reduced brown stock with a small roux, or a well-made demi-glace, stands in for both without shaming the plate.
TimingsThree-quarters of an hour was written for a young bird of the period. Commercial turkey wings today are large and full of collagen; expect 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer, covered, with the meat yielding easily to a skewer. Undercooked wing meat is tough and rubbery, not merely firm.
Chestnuts and celeryUse peeled cooked chestnuts, vacuum-packed or jarred, and add them for the last 20 minutes only — raw-peeled chestnuts take longer, but either way both they and the celery should collapse under gentle thumb pressure and not before. Cut the celery in the specified 1¼-inch squares from the wide stalk ends and blanch it two or three minutes first; strip the coarse strings off by hand before cutting.
Finishing the liquidStrain, skim the fat, reduce hard, then clarify and pass through cloth. Clarifying with egg white is optional for home cooking; careful skimming and a fine-mesh strain give a clean enough glaze.
YieldTwelve boned wing joints serve six as a course, two apiece, with the chestnut and celery ragout spooned over.

A Little History

Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the economics of a large restaurant brigade: the breasts and legs of the turkey went to the grand dishes, and the wings — cheap, gelatinous, labour-intensive — were turned into a garnished entrée that justified its price through knife work rather than expensive meat. Three consecutive numbered recipes for turkey wings alone suggest how routinely the kitchen had to find uses for them. Chestnuts with turkey is an old pairing on both sides of the Atlantic, and the addition of braised celery is very much of the period, when celery was a prized winter vegetable sold in tall glass vases on American tables and used cooked as often as raw. The technique of boning a small joint, braising it between sheets of pork fat and napping it with a reduced espagnole is textbook Carême-descended French practice, transplanted more or less intact to New York.