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Stuffed Chicken or Turkey Legs

Stuffed chicken or turkey legs cooked in boiling water and baked, then breaded and fried, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Chicken or Turkey Legs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and stuff

  1. Remove the tendons and bone from the drumsticks.

  2. Stuff the legs with force meat and sew the skin securely to maintain shape.

Poach and cool

  1. Place the legs in a baking pan.

  2. Cover with boiling water.

  3. Simmer in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until tender.

  4. Remove from water and let cool.

  5. Take out the stitches.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the legs in beaten egg.

  2. Roll the legs in seasoned fine bread crumbs.

  3. Roll the legs again in egg.

  4. Fry in deep oil for 1 minute until golden brown.

  5. Serve with your choice of sauce.

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. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  2. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or turkey legs
Provide the meat that is stuffed, cooked until tender and fried.
Force meat
Fills the legs, adding moistness and body inside the cooked meat.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the legs.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the coated legs. Frying for only 1 minute is enough to brown the coating because the legs are already cooked through. Oil that is too cool lets the crumbs absorb grease and turn soggy, while oil that is too hot can darken the coating before it heats through.

“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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