Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Boiled Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Fill the turkey with oyster stuffing and tie the legs and wings close to the body.
Optionally, roll the turkey in a cloth dipped in flour before boiling.
Boil and serve
Place the turkey breast down in salted boiling water.
Skim the water often and boil for about 2 hours, ensuring the skin does not break.
Serve with oyster or celery sauce.
Boil a piece of salt pork and serve a thin slice on each plate.
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.
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Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together830 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Oyster + porktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,255 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together360 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together473 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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; long gentle boiling cooks the meat through while keeping it moist.
- Oyster stuffing
- Adds moisture and savory flavour to the bird as it cooks inside the turkey.
- Salt pork
- Contributes savory, salty fat flavour when boiled and served as an optional accompaniment.
The step that matters
Skim the water often and keep the skin intact. Foam and impurities rising from the boiling water can cloud the broth and cling to the bird. Keeping the water at a gentle boil, rather than a hard rolling boil, helps the skin stay whole instead of splitting as the meat cooks.
“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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