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Pilaff of Turkey, Noni
Cut the meat from the turkey left over from yesterday into half-inch pieces. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a saucepan, add six finely chopped shallots and a sound, seeded green pepper, also finely chopped, and brown to a nice light colour, add four ounces of raw beef marrow cut into small squares, one peeled and cored apple cut in same way, brown five minutes, then add five ounces raw rice, the turkey, a pint broth, two gills pure tomato juice, half teaspoon salt and three saltspoons white pepper; lightly mix, cover pan set in oven thirty-five minutes. Remove, add two egg yolks and two tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, drop preparation in a lightly buttered plain pudding mould and mix well. Set mould in a saucepan with hot water up to half its height, then set in oven twenty-five minutes. Remove, unmould on a dish, pour a port wine sauce around and serve.
A leftover-turkey dish built like a French timbale rather than a true pilaf: the rice is cooked wet on purpose so it will hold a mould. Read the liquid ratio as intentional.
- UnitsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of tomato juice is one cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making three of them about three-quarters teaspoon of white pepper. Five ounces of raw rice is roughly three-quarters cup; four ounces of marrow is about half a cup, chopped.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, around 325-350F, is the usual modern reading for the covered rice stage; for the water bath the heat should be low enough that the bath never comes to a boil.
- The liquid is deliberately generousA pint of broth plus a cup of tomato juice to three-quarters cup of rice is far more than a pilaf ratio. The result is a soft, sticky mass that binds when the yolks and cheese go in, which is what lets it unmould. Do not reduce the liquid to get separate grains.
- Beef marrowRaw marrow is scooped from split beef leg bones and must be ordered from a butcher; soak it briefly in cold water and pull out any bone splinters. Suet or plain butter can stand in, but the marrow is what gives the dish its silky richness.
- Shallots and pepperSix shallots is a lot by modern reckoning; adjust to taste. "Sound, seeded green pepper" simply means an unblemished bell pepper with core and seeds removed.
- Adding the yolksStir the yolks and Parmesan into the rice while it is hot but off the heat, working quickly and mixing thoroughly, then pack into the buttered mould. The water bath sets them gently; if the bath is allowed to boil, the custard curdles and the timbale weeps when turned out.
- UnmouldingLet the mould stand five minutes out of the water before inverting, and run a thin knife around the edge. A plain, straight-sided mould of about one and a half quarts is the right size.
- The sauce"Port wine sauce" here means a brown sauce or demi-glace finished with port, not a sweet reduction. Turkey or veal stock reduced with port and a little butter serves the purpose.
- YieldEnough for four to six as a main course; it is substantial. Serves best hot, cut in wedges at the table.
Pilaf reached Western cookbooks through the Ottoman kitchen, where pilav meant rice cooked in seasoned broth, and by the late nineteenth century the word had become a loose label in European and American professional cookery for almost anything involving rice and stock. This version is really a French timbale wearing a Turkish name: the enrichment with egg yolks and Parmesan, the buttered mould, the water bath and the port sauce are all classic restaurant technique. The dedication in the title follows the convention of the period, in which cooks named dishes for patrons, family members or colleagues; such names rarely carry any documented story. What is genuinely of its time is the premise, a use for "the turkey left over from yesterday" that puts marrow, cheese and wine sauce to work on cold roast meat rather than serving it sliced.