Ordering a Tray of Turkey Wings in Brooklyn

A whole bird is a project. Somebody has to buy it, find oven space for it, watch it, rest it, carve it in front of people and then work out what to do with the frame. For a lot of Brooklyn gatherings that's more ceremony than anyone signed up for.

A full pan of Pan Turkey Wings is $140 from FreeTown African & American Cuisine at 1172 Park Place in Crown Heights. It carries the same weight at the table with none of the project attached. That's the case for this tray, and it's a good one.

Why do turkey wings anchor a table better than a whole bird?

Because a wing is the part of the bird that rewards slow cooking, and because it arrives already broken down.

Turkey breast is lean and it punishes you for any mistake in timing. Wings are the opposite. They are connective tissue and dark meat, which means long low heat turns them into something that pulls apart instead of something that dries out. That is why turkey wings have their own place on a Southern table entirely separate from the roast bird, and why they read as a serious dish rather than a shortcut.

The practical side matters just as much. Nobody carves. There's no moment where the room stands around waiting while someone works out where the joint is. The pan opens and the food is ready in the form it is going to be eaten in. At a gathering with a lot of moving parts, that is worth real money.

At $140 a full pan, it is also the second most expensive of the Southern trays on this menu, behind nothing in the poultry section except the steak and lamb pans that belong to a different kind of order.

How does a turkey wing tray hold through a long Brooklyn event?

Very well, and better than most of what will be next to it.

Slow-cooked dark meat sits in its own moisture. There is no crust to soften and no delicate texture to lose, which puts turkey wings in the same category as collard greens and baked chicken, well clear of the fried category where the clock is running. An event that stretches across an afternoon won't do anything to this pan.

Keep it covered. That's the only real handling note. Uncovered, the top of the pan dries and the exposed edges go leathery while everything underneath stays right. Covered, it holds the whole way through, and the liquid in the bottom of the pan keeps working in your favour.

Serving is easier with tongs than a spoon. Wings are awkward in a serving spoon and guests end up dropping them across the line. Tongs and a slightly deeper plate solve it.

The guide to keeping catering trays warm covers the rest of the spread, and it is worth reading if the turkey wings are sharing a table with anything fried.

What should you serve with a pan of turkey wings?

Something that catches the liquid, and something green.

Mashed Potato at $80 a pan is the obvious partner and it earns the spot. A slow-cooked wing gives off a lot of flavor into the bottom of the pan, and mashed potato is the thing on the table designed to receive it. Keep the potato covered as well, because it skins over on top when it sits open, which reads worse than it eats.

Pan Collard Greens at $60 does the cutting. Turkey wings are rich and deep, and a rich table with no acid in it gets tiring by the second plate. Greens are the least expensive Southern tray on the menu and they hold longer than anything else, which makes them an easy first addition to any order.

White Rice at $40 is the cheapest pan available and it does the same job as the potato for a table that leans that way. A lot of orders take both.

If you want a second protein next to the wings, the two $100 chicken pans are the usual move, and they behave differently enough from each other to be worth thinking about. Fried or baked chicken for a catering order works through which one suits a long event. For a fish option that changes the character of the table, a tray of fried whiting is $115 a pan.

The turkey wing questions only the kitchen can answer

There are things readers reasonably want to know that we aren't going to invent.

We don't publish how many people one full pan covers. Not as a number, not as a range. Yield depends on how you're serving, how many other trays are on the table and who is at your event. The generic figures floating around contradict each other badly, so we'd rather have a thirty second conversation than hand you a number that makes you order wrong.

We're also not going to tell you what is or is not included alongside the wings. Whether there is gravy in the pan is a question for the kitchen, and so is exactly how the dish is prepared, how much heat is in it, and whether it works for a guest with a food allergy or for someone at your table who does not eat meat. Those are real questions with real answers that belong to the people cooking.

Call 718-799-7160 and ask. Say what the event is and roughly how many people you're expecting, and the order gets built against that instead of against a guess.

Turkey wings around the holidays in Crown Heights

Turkey shows up in more Brooklyn kitchens between late autumn and the new year than at any other point in the calendar, and the wing tray is a genuinely practical answer to a household that is hosting more people than its oven was built for.

The logic is simple. The oven at home is already committed to something. The turkey wings arrive cooked, in a pan, ready to sit covered until people eat. Nobody loses their morning to it. If a holiday spread is what you are planning, Thanksgiving catering in Brooklyn goes further into building the whole table, not just one tray of it.

Worth saying plainly: what is on offer here is the wing tray at $140 a pan. This kitchen is not selling a whole roasted bird, and there is nothing on the menu described as stuffing or dressing. What is on the menu is eighteen trays, and the way you build a holiday table out of them is by pairing the wings with the potato, the greens and a rice pan.

Placing the order

Pan Turkey Wings, $140 a full pan, from 1172 Park Place, Brooklyn, NY 11213. Order it as the anchor rather than as an extra, put mashed potato and collard greens on either side of it, keep the lid on, and hand people tongs.

Call 718-799-7160 to place the order. For the wider Southern spread with every tray priced, soul food catering in Brooklyn by the pan is the place to start.