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Fricasse of Turkey

A stew made from roast turkey, bones, and aromatics simmered in broth and served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fricasse of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut slices from the remnants of roast turkey.

  2. Break the bones into small pieces and place them in a stew pan with skin and trimmings. Add lemon peel, onion, herbs, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Cover with water and simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the mixture and remove all fat from the surface; allow to cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the turkey meat in the strained broth and warm it through slowly.

  2. Thicken the gravy with brown stock, add desired flavorings, and stir well.

  3. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with toast.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Brown stock
Adds concentrated savory flavor and color, and helps thicken the gravy.
Slices of roast turkey
Provides the meat that is gently warmed through in the finished gravy.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and depth to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Remove the fat and cool the broth before adding the meat. Fat floats on the surface and can make the gravy greasy and heavy. Skimming it after straining, and cooling so the fat solidifies, gives a cleaner, lighter gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, lemon, thyme, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, lemon, thyme, parsley. 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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