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Fricasseed Turkey

A turkey stew with lemon, herbs, cream, and egg yolk, served with toasted bread garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricasseed Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Cut nice slices from the cold turkey and place the bones and trimmings in a saucepan.

  2. Add the lemon peel, herbs, onion, pepper, salt, and water; stew for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the gravy and add the turkey pieces; warm through.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream and egg yolk until thickened, then remove the turkey pieces.

  2. Place the turkey on a hot dish and pour the sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with snippets of toasted bread.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold turkey
Provides the cooked meat that is gently rewarmed in the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavor.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream-enriched sauce as it gently heats, giving it a smooth consistency.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and aroma to the stewed gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the sauce gets too hot or boils, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly once the cream and yolk are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, lemon, pepper, cream, egg, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, lemon, pepper, cream, egg, bread. 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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