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Turkey, Braised

A braised turkey cooked with bacon, giblets, vegetables, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Turkey, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Pluck and singe the turkey, then remove the neck and legs, and empty the bird, saving the heart, liver, and gizzard.

  2. Cut the neck into three pieces, clean and scald the legs and gizzard, and peel off the outer skin from the legs and the thick inner skin from the gizzard.

  3. Cover the turkey with thin slices of bacon and tie it with twine to hold its shape.

Braise

  1. In a braising pan, place 3 or 4 slices of bacon, lay the turkey on top, and add the giblets, trimmings, calf's foot or sheep's trotters, onions, carrots, parsnip, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, and garlic if using.

  2. Lay 2 or 3 slices of bacon over the turkey and almost cover it with stock.

  3. Cover the pan and simmer gently for 4 to 6 hours, depending on the size of the turkey, turning it halfway through if using a regular stewpan.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold, garnished with vegetables or a chipolata garnish, and pour over some gravy thickened with brown thickening.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  4. Parsnip + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

  5. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long, gentle moist cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the bird as it cooks.
Calf's foot or sheep's trotters
Adds gelatine, which enriches the braising liquid and gives a silky body to the gravy.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the braising liquid as they soften.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the turkey and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the pan covered. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid below boiling, so the meat becomes tender without tightening and drying out. Vigorous boiling toughens the proteins and can break the bird apart.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, onion, carrot, parsnip, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, onion, carrot, parsnip, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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