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Cold Fowl or Turkey to Pull

A cold fowl or turkey pulled into flakes, served with gravy and broiled legs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Cold Fowl or Turkey to Pull

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the skin from the fowl or turkey.

  2. Pull the meat off the breast and wings into long flakes.

  3. Brown the meat in a frying pan with butter.

  4. Drain the meat from the fat.

Make the hash

  1. Place the drained meat in a saucepan with gravy seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Simmer gently to warm the meat.

  3. Thicken the sauce with the yolks of two eggs.

  4. Add hot cream to the sauce.

Broil and serve

  1. Score and season the legs.

  2. Broil the legs with the sidebones and back.

  3. Serve the hash in the center with the broiled pieces around it.

  4. Garnish with toasted sippets.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness through emulsified fat and protein as they gently set.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor while browning the meat.
Gravy
Provides the liquid base that moistens and flavors the meat.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the yolks of two eggs. Egg yolks set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or turn grainy if it boils. Keep it gently warm and stir steadily, adding the cream before thickening is complete.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, cream. 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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