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To Souse a Turkey

A turkey soaked in a seasoned alegar, cloves, mace, nutmeg, peppercorns, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Souse a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Kill the turkey and let it hang for 4-5 days in the feathers.

  2. Pick the turkey, slit it up the back, and remove the entrails.

  3. Bone the turkey and bind it with a piece of matting.

Cook and store

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine alegar, cloves, mace, nutmeg, peppercorns, and salt; bring to a boil.

  2. Add the turkey and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the turkey and let it cool, then place it in an earthen pot.

  4. Pour the cooking liquid over the turkey and store for later use.

Serve

  1. When serving, garnish with sprigs of fennel.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Turkey + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turkey + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Is the main protein, which the pickling liquid penetrates and flavours during cooking and storage.
Strong alegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the meat and gives the brine its tang.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the pickling liquid.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the turkey in the pickling liquid. The liquid must be boiling hot before the turkey goes in, and the turkey must be fully submerged. Heat helps the spices and acid penetrate the meat evenly, while submersion keeps every part in contact with the liquid for consistent preservation.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, clove, nutmeg. 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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