Skip to main content
Starter

To Boil a Turkey

A whole turkey is stuffed, tied, wrapped, boiled, and rested.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stuff the turkey with bread, butter, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and minced parsley.

  2. Tie the legs and wings as for roasting.

  3. Wrap the turkey in a cloth well sprinkled with flour.

Cook and rest

  1. Boil for 40 minutes.

  2. Remove the pot and let it stand with the lid on for 30 minutes before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Is the main protein that cooks through in the boiling liquid and gives the dish its body.
Bread
Soaks up butter and juices inside the bird, keeping the stuffing moist.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the meat tender and moist.
Flour
Forms a dry coating on the cloth that helps shape the wrap and protect the skin.

The step that matters

Resting with the lid on. Letting the turkey stand covered for 30 minutes allows heat to even out and juices to settle back into the meat, so slicing releases less liquid and the meat stays moister.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, pepper, flour. 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.

More boiled turkey recipes

with Oyster Sauce 11Eggs 4with Celery Sauce 4with Oyster Stuffing 4Celery Sauce for 3 See all 186 →

You might also like

Deviled OystersDeviled Oysters25 recipes