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To Stew a Turkey Brown

A whole turkey stuffed with oysters, marrow and bread, larded with bacon, and stewed in veal gravy with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew a Turkey Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Soak the turkey in soft water until almost done.

  2. Place the turkey in a pot with some of the boiling water to keep it hot.

  3. Remove the entrails and bones carefully from the turkey, leaving the legs, wings, and rump intact.

  4. Chop the bread, oysters, beef marrow, and lemon peel finely.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, then mix with egg yolks to create stuffing.

  6. Stuff the turkey, sew it up, and lard it with bacon.

Make the celery and sauce

  1. Wash and clean the celery, then boil it in the turkey water until tender.

  2. Remove the celery and set it aside.

  3. Stew the turkey breast down for 15 minutes, then remove it.

  4. Mix butter and flour to thicken the sauce.

  5. Add cream and the boiled celery to the sauce.

  6. Pour the sauce over the turkey and serve.

Roast and stew

  1. Roast the turkey halfway, then place it in a roasting pan with veal gravy and cover tightly.

  2. After one hour, add mushroom ketchup, anchovy, lemon slices, Cayenne pepper, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover and stew for another 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the turkey, skim the fat from the gravy, and strain it.

  5. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then boil for a few minutes.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the chopped stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Flour
Flour with butter forms a roux that thickens the sauce and gravy.
Butter
Butter enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms the thickening roux.
Cream
Cream adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Beef marrow
Marrow melts into the stuffing, adding richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey halfway, then cover tightly in the gravy. Covering the bird while it cooks in liquid keeps the lean meat moist. Uncovered or too-high heat dries out the breast before the stuffing and thighs are cooked through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, flour, cream, celery, oyster, beef):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, cream, celery, oyster, beef. 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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