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A Turkey a LA Daube

A turkey stuffed with forcemeat, boiled and roasted in veal gravy with mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon, cayenne, sweet herbs, served with oyster patties.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A Turkey a LA Daube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Bone the turkey down the back without spoiling its appearance.

  2. Mix the egg yolks with chopped oysters, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, shallots, thyme, parsley, and butter to make a forcemeat.

  3. Stuff the turkey with the forcemeat and sew it up with thread.

  4. Wrap the turkey in a clean cloth and boil it until white but not overcooked.

Braise and finish the gravy

  1. In a roasting pan, place the turkey and cover it with veal gravy.

  2. Roast the turkey halfway, then add mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon, cayenne pepper, and sweet herbs to the gravy.

  3. Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the turkey, skim the fat from the gravy, and thicken it with flour and butter.

  5. Let the gravy boil for a few minutes and pour it hot over the turkey.

Serve

  1. Serve with oyster patties.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the forcemeat and absorbing the gravy's flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when stuffed and cooked.
Veal gravy
Provides the moist, savoury liquid that cooks and flavours the turkey.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the turkey.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the forcemeat and the thickened gravy.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the gravy without tasting distinctly fishy.

The step that matters

Boiling the turkey before roasting. Boiling only until the flesh turns white keeps it tender; overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the meat, which then cannot recover during the later braise.

“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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