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Fricaseed Turkey

A stewed turkey cooked in broth thickened with a butter and flour paste, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricaseed Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Clean the turkey pieces and stew them over a gentle fire in enough water to cover.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Cook until the turkey is tender, then season with salt and pepper.

Finish the stew

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and butter into a smooth paste.

  2. Gradually stir the paste into the broth.

  3. Chop the parsley finely and add it to the stew.

  4. Let the stew cook for an additional 20 minutes after adding the 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, velvety sauce when combined with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend into a smooth paste.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter paste into the broth. Adding the paste all at once can leave lumps of flour. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper, flour, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, flour, butter. 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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