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Turkey a LA Bechamel

A dish of roasted turkey simmered in a creamy béchamel sauce, served with noodles, rice, croutons, or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Turkey a LA Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the turkey into small pieces and crack the bones.

  2. Place the bones in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and add the onion.

  3. Boil for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the broth through a napkin.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir for a few minutes.

  2. Add the turkey broth, salt, peppercorns, bouquet of herbs, and mushroom liquor if using.

  3. Cook for 6 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan.

  5. Add the cream or milk and nutmeg.

  6. Stir in the fine-cut turkey meat.

  7. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  8. Add the lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with noodles, rice timbales, croutons, or over toast.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey meat
Provides the main body and protein of the dish, becoming tender as it simmers in the sauce.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the sauce to a smooth, coating consistency.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the sauce's flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the melted butter. Stirring the flour into the butter and cooking it briefly forms a roux. Stirring keeps it smooth, and cooking off the raw flour taste before adding liquid prevents lumps and a pasty flavor in the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, flour, mushroom, cream, nutmeg, meat):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, mushroom, cream, nutmeg, meat. 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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