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To Make Sauce for a Turkey

A savory sauce made with oysters, white gravy, lemon pickle, flour, butter, and thick cream for turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Make Sauce for a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Wash the oysters and place them in a bowl, discarding their liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour the settled liquor into a saucepan with white gravy and lemon pickle.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, then boil for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Stir in the thick cream and add the oysters.

  4. Heat gently, shaking the pan until the oysters are hot, but do not let them boil.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter 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

Oysters
Provide the main briny flavor and a tender, delicate texture in the sauce.
White gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the other flavors.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a silky body to the sauce.
Lemon pickle
Adds acidity and a sharp, bright flavor that balances the richness.

The step that matters

Heat the oysters gently without boiling. Oyster proteins tighten and toughen quickly under prolonged or vigorous heat, making them rubbery and shrinking them. Heating only until they are hot keeps them tender and plump.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, flour, butter, 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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