No. 2040

Turkey Wings with Risot—Stuffed

Ailerons de Dinde Farcis au Risot

Choose two dozen large turkey wings; singe and bone as far as the second joint, leaving on the tip; fill up the empty space with quenelle forcemeat (No. 89) with fine herbs and sew up the opening with thread; scald them in boiling water to stiffen the skin and refresh to pare; range them in a sautoir lined with fragments of salt pork, onions and roots, salt over and moisten to half their height with stock (No. 194a); let fall to a glaze and remoisten to their height with more broth and a little white wine, cover with fat pork and finish to cook very slowly. Apart from this prepare a good risot with half a pound of rice and some stock (No. 194a); when done remove and finish with butter, parmesan cheese and two spoonfuls of tomato sauce (No. 549). Drain the wings, untruss and cut off the tips; dress the risot in a vegetable dish and the wings on top, pour some of their own stock over after skimming and reducing it well and serve remainder in a sauceboat.

← No. 2039 Turkey Wings with Celery and Chestnuts Turkey & Guinea Fowl No. 2041 Turkey Gobbler Stuffed with Chestnuts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote for a Delmonico's brigade, so the quantities and the vocabulary both need translating. The dish is a braise of boned, stuffed wings served over risotto, and the whole thing hinges on cooking the wings slowly enough that the forcemeat sets without bursting the skin.

ScaleTwo dozen wings serves roughly twelve as a course. Six to eight wings scales down cleanly; the braising liquid should still come to the height of the wings, so use a pan that fits them snugly in one layer. Ranhofer's own proportion is half a pound of rice to two dozen wings, so scale the rice against that.
Boning the wings"Bone as far as the second joint, leaving on the tip" means removing the humerus and the two forearm bones from the drumette and flat while keeping the wing tip attached as a handle. Work the knife along the bone from the thick end and push the meat back like a sleeve rather than cutting through the skin, which has to hold the stuffing.
Quenelle forcemeatNo. 89 is one of the book's pounded quenelle forcemeats, of the usual type: raw veal or poultry with panada, egg and cream. In a modern kitchen, chicken or veal blitzed cold in a food processor with egg white and cream, seasoned, then folded with chopped parsley, chervil and tarragon for the "fine herbs." Keep everything refrigerator-cold or the emulsion breaks.
Scald and refreshThe brief plunge in boiling water tightens the skin so the stuffed wings hold their shape and can be trimmed neatly; cooling them in cold water immediately after stops the forcemeat from cooking through at that stage.
Sautoir, salt pork and "roots"A sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan; any heavy braiser with a lid will do. "Roots" means the aromatic root vegetables — carrot, turnip, parsnip, celeriac. The salt pork lining and the sheet of fat pork over the top are there for moisture and richness; blanched bacon or thin sheets of fatback both work, and unsmoked is closer to the original.
"Let fall to a glaze"Reduce that first addition of stock until it is a sticky film on the bottom of the pan, which builds colour and body, then remoisten. This is the step that makes the finishing sauce taste of something.
Cooking temperature"Finish to cook very slowly" means a bare simmer: a low oven, or the lowest stovetop setting with the lid on. The book gives neither temperature nor time; cook until the wings are tender, and the forcemeat should register 165F at the centre.
The risotHalf a pound of rice is a generous cup dry. This is a risotto in the older sense: rice sweated in fat, moistened gradually with stock, then mounted off the heat with butter and grated Parmesan, here with two spoonfuls of tomato sauce stirred through for colour and acidity. A short-grain rice such as Arborio or Carnaroli suits the method.
Finishing"Untruss" means pull out the sewing thread; then cut off the wing tips, which have done their job. Skim the braising liquid, reduce it until it coats a spoon, spoon a little over the wings on the rice and send the rest to table separately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe shows the house style plainly: an inexpensive cut treated with the full apparatus of French cuisine. Boned, stuffed wings — ailerons farcis — were a standard exercise in nineteenth-century French kitchens, a way of turning a bony scrap into something that could be plated as a proper entrée. The spelling "risot" for risotto is the ordinary French spelling of the period, and the dish sits at a moment when Italian rice cookery was arriving in high French-American restaurant menus as a garnish rather than a course in its own right; the tomato sauce and Parmesan finish would have read as distinctly Italian to his diners. The cross-references to numbered forcemeats, stocks and sauces are how the book works throughout — it assumes a kitchen with all of them already standing ready.