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A Simple Way of Preparing Boned Turkey or Chicken

A method for preparing boned turkey or chicken with a butter dressing, pressed and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

A Simple Way of Preparing Boned Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and debone

  1. Boil the fowl in minimal water until the bones separate easily from the meat.

  2. Remove all skin and mix the light and dark meat together.

Assemble

  1. Prepare a dressing as you would for roast turkey and melt the butter.

  2. Mould the dressing into a round ball and surround it with the meat.

  3. Boil down the liquid from cooking the turkey or chicken and pour it over the meat.

Press and serve

  1. Wrap the meat tightly in a cloth and press it with a heavy weight for a few hours.

  2. When ready to serve, cut into thin slices.

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. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 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 or chicken
Supplies the meat that is pressed into a compact loaf that holds together when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the dressing at the centre of the loaf.

The step that matters

Wrap the meat tightly and press it. Firm, even pressure compacts the shredded meat so the loaf binds together and slices cleanly. Loose wrapping or light pressing leaves gaps and crumbly slices.

“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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