No. 2615

Turkey in Daube a la Verneuil

Dinde en Daube a la Verneuil

After picking, singeing and drawing a large turkey, lard it with lardons (No. 2, Fig. 52), seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, chives and pulverized thyme and bay leaf. Line a braziere (Fig. 134), with slices of fat pork, raw lean ham, carrots, onions, a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf, a clove of garlic, a gill of brandy and two split calf's feet or knuckle of veal; lay in the turkey. Boil, skim, then set the braziere in the oven for three or four hours until perfectly cooked. Blanch and cook separately some turnip balls three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and some short sticks of carrots one inch long by three-eighths of an inch in diameter. When the turkey is cooked put it into an earthen or a tin vessel, strain the stock over and when three-quarters cooled remove the bones and skin from the meat. Mold the daube in a mold about one inch shorter and narrower than the mold to be decorated, placing in layers of turkey, calf's feet, truffles and pistachios. Decorate the larger mold, the shape of the one in Fig. 536, with the carrot sticks cut lengthwise in two and the rounded side applied; the half lozenges on top to be of turnips and the smaller lozenges above of truffles, below which place a row of small green peas. Coat the decoration and fill the bottom with jelly, and when hardened unmold the smallest mold and place it in the decorated one. Fill up with cold liquid jelly, let get throughly cold on ice, and when sufficiently firm unmold on a cold oval dish; garnish around with chopped jelly and triangular jelly croutons dressed upright. On top fasten three hatelets and on the first platform range a symmetrical border of jelly squares all around.

← No. 2614 Turkey a la Stevens—Stuffed Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2616 Turkey or Goose in Daube →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full-scale pièce montée from the Delmonico's kitchen: a braised turkey boned, set in aspic and rebuilt inside a decorated mold. Nothing in it is difficult, but the sequence is long and the whole thing lives or dies on the strength and clarity of the jelly.

The hinge: the gelatin comes from the feetThe split calf's feet or veal knuckle are not flavoring, they are the setting agent for the entire dish. If you omit them the strained stock will never firm up enough to unmold. Should you use a knuckle rather than feet, expect to reinforce the strained, degreased stock with unflavored powdered gelatin, tested by chilling a spoonful on a saucer before you commit the mold.
A braziereA braisière is a heavy lidded braising pan, deep enough to hold a whole bird with its bed of pork, ham and vegetables. A large enameled cast-iron roaster or covered oval Dutch oven does the same work. The lid matters more than the material; this is a closed braise, not a roast.
Oven heatRanhofer gives no temperature because his ranges had none. A braise of this length wants 300–325°F, and three to four hours is realistic for a large bird. Cook to tenderness rather than the clock, since the meat will be pulled from the bone anyway.
A gill of brandyHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. It goes into the pan bed with the aromatics, not over the bird.
LardingLardons here are strips of firm fat back drawn through the breast and thigh with a larding needle, seasoned before insertion. Modern turkeys are often leaner-fleshed than the birds Ranhofer worked with, so the fat may be doing real work. Barding the breast with sheets of fat back is a serviceable substitute if you have no needle.
Cooling and food safetyThe instruction to let the bird cool in its stock "three-quarters" of the way, then bone it, means several hours in the danger zone on a modern counter. Chill the pot down quickly in an ice bath and do the boning cold; the meat is easier to handle and the jelly clearer for it.
The double moldThe inner mold is packed with turkey, calf's foot meat, truffle and pistachio and set solid. The outer mold is decorated on its chilled, jelly-coated walls with the carrot half-rounds, turnip and truffle lozenges and peas, the inner block dropped in, and the gap filled with cold liquid jelly. Work with the outer mold sitting in ice and add the filling jelly barely liquid, or it will float the decoration off the walls.
HateletsHâtelets are ornamental silver skewers threaded with truffle, comb or crayfish and pushed into the finished piece for height. They are display only and are removed before eating; nothing is lost by leaving them out.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; a large turkey boned into aspic is intended to stretch across a cold buffet table. It is a banquet dish and does not scale down gracefully; the same treatment applied to a whole boned chicken gives a manageable version of the same idea.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the chapter on garnishings for cold dishes belongs to the grand buffet tradition that descends from Carême: food built up in molds, coated in aspic, and set out on the sideboard to be admired before it is carved. Daube is an old Provençal term for a long, closed, wine-scented braise, usually of beef, and a daube may be served hot or, as here, cold in its own set jelly, since the collagen from feet and knuckles jellies the liquor. Dish names ending in a proper noun—à la Verneuil, à la Stevens—are the working shorthand of nineteenth-century restaurant kitchens, sometimes honoring a patron, sometimes a place, and often no longer traceable to either. What the recipe really documents is a brigade with time and hands to spare: someone cut the turnip balls to three-eighths of an inch, and someone else halved carrot sticks lengthwise so the rounded side would face out through the jelly.