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Turkey, Pulled

Pulled turkey served with a thickened gravy, topped with roasted legs and gizzard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Turkey, Pulled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Cut off the legs and score the meat on them and the gizzard at regular distances.

  2. Season the legs and gizzard as for devilled turkey and set aside.

  3. Remove the skin from the turkey body and pull the white meat from the bones in long flakes using a fork.

Make the gravy

  1. In a stewpan, combine the bones and trimmings, mace, shallot, lemon juice and rind, stock, pepper, and salt.

  2. Simmer gently until the gravy is strong and flavorful.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  5. Add milk or cream and boil for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the pulled turkey meat to the gravy.

  2. Simmer until hot, avoiding boiling.

  3. Dip the seasoned legs and gizzard in clarified butter.

  4. Broil over a clear fire until lightly browned.

  5. Serve the pulled turkey with the sauce in the center of a hot dish, topped with the legs and gizzard.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey meat
Forms the main body of the dish, pulled into long flakes that hold the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body to coat the meat.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat and adds a rich, savory flavor.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the gravy's flavor and texture.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, carrying savory flavor from the bones.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer until hot, avoiding boiling. Once the pulled meat is added to the gravy, boiling can toughen the protein and make the flakes dry and stringy. Gentle heat keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, shallot, lemon, flour, butter, milk. 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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