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Boiled Fowl or Turkey

A boiled fowl or turkey seasoned with lemon and wrapped in buttered paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Boiled Fowl or Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the breast of the fowl or turkey with lemon juice.

  2. Place thin slices of lemon on the breast.

  3. Cover with a piece of buttered paper.

  4. Wrap the whole in a cloth.

  5. Boil until cooked through.

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

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

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

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

  3. Turkey + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl or turkey
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and firm as it cooks through.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor to the surface of the bird.
Butter
Adds fat that helps keep the surface moist under the buttered paper.

The step that matters

Boil until cooked through. The thickest parts of the bird must reach a safe internal temperature, and the record gives no time. Judging by appearance alone can leave the meat undercooked near the bone, so check the thickest part with a thermometer.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter. 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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