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Boiled Turkey

A whole turkey boiled with optional oyster dressing, onion, parsley, and butter, served with egg or bread sauce and cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the turkey as you would for boiled chicken.

  2. Stuff with oyster dressing if desired.

  3. Wrap the turkey in a floured cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Place in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Add chopped onion and parsley browned in butter.

  3. Simmer for 15 minutes per pound or until fully cooked.

  4. Serve with egg sauce or bread sauce, and cranberries.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked through by simmering in water.
Butter
Carries the browning of the onion and parsley, adding richness and a toasted flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens and browns in butter.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the cooking liquid and dish.

The step that matters

Simmer until fully cooked. Simmering time is given per pound, but a bird of unusual size or stuffing can cook unevenly. Checking that the thickest parts and the stuffing reach a safe internal temperature matters more than the clock.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, oyster, flour, parsley, butter, egg, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, oyster, flour, parsley, butter, egg, sauce. 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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