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Turkey A-LA-daube

A turkey stew made with ham, forcemeat, herbs, and clear broth, finished with isinglass and served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and ham work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Turkey A-LA-daube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Bone the turkey.

  2. Season the turkey with pepper and salt.

  3. Spread diced ham over the turkey.

  4. Add forcemeat.

  5. Add a seasoned boned fowl.

  6. Add more ham.

  7. Add forcemeat.

  8. Sew the turkey up with thread.

Braise

  1. Cover the bottom of a stew-pan with veal and ham.

  2. Place the turkey in the stew-pan with the bread side down.

  3. Chop all the bones into pieces and add them to the turkey.

  4. Cover the pan and heat it for five minutes.

  5. Add enough clear broth to cover the turkey.

  6. Let the turkey boil for two hours.

  7. Add isinglass.

  8. Add a bundle of herbs.

Set and serve

  1. Remove the turkey from the pan.

  2. Drain the jelly through a fine sieve.

  3. Skim off all the fat.

  4. Place the turkey on the jelly with the bread side down.

  5. Cover the turkey with the jelly.

  6. Let it cool in a cold place.

  7. Turn the turkey onto the dish.

  8. Spread butter over the turkey's bread.

  9. Garnish with parsley or flowers.

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. Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turkey + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  4. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Forcemeat
Forms a moist, savoury stuffing that fills the boned bird and keeps its shape.
Isinglass
Gelatinous setting agent that turns the cooking liquid into a firm jelly when cooled.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the stuffing and the braising base.
Clear broth
Moist cooking liquid that gently braises the turkey and supplies the jelly.

The step that matters

Let the turkey boil for two hours. A rolling boil toughens and dries the meat and can break up the bird. A gentle simmer keeps the turkey tender and the broth clear enough to set into a clean jelly.

“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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