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Turkeys' Carcass

A turkey carcass stuffed with its own meat and gravy, baked until warmed, served with celery tops and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkeys' Carcass

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cut all the meat off the turkey carcass and bones.

  2. Place the meat back inside the carcass with gravy if available.

Heat and serve

  1. Put the filled carcass in a hot pan and then into a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Heat for 10 to 15 minutes until warmed through.

  3. Serve directly from the oven in the carcass, garnished with celery tops and parsley.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Meat + turkeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turkey + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together532 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Meat from the turkey carcass
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies the protein that gets heated through.
Gravy
Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy while it heats in the oven.

The step that matters

Heating until warmed through. Turkey left over from a carcass can dry out if overheated, while under-heating leaves the centre cold. Heating just until warmed through, with gravy keeping the meat moist, balances both risks.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, turkey, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, turkey, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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