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Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudree

A seasoned turkey stuffed with sausage and breadcrumbs, then boiled and served cold with a lemon‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Prepare the turkey by wiping the inside with a dry cloth; do not wash it.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt inside to draw out the blood; let it sit for a couple of hours, then drain and wipe again.

  3. Rub the outside of the turkey with ½ cup coarse sea salt mixed with 1 tablespoon sugar.

  4. Turn the turkey every day for four days.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the turkey with equal parts sausage meat and bread crumbs soaked in boiling milk or cream, wrung dry.

  2. Season the filling with the grated lemon rind, nutmeg, cayenne, and fine herbs.

  3. Sew the turkey securely, truss it, and roll it in a cloth, tying it at both ends.

  4. Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours.

  5. Once cooked, sprinkle the turkey with fine bread crumbs mixed with chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, lemon rind, mustard, sugar, and oil, mixed until smooth.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, and its long salting cures the meat and draws out moisture.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury richness that keeps the stuffing moist during gentle boiling.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk or cream to bind the filling and keep it tender.
Sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the bird through the long curing period.
Lemon
Provides acidity and aroma in both the filling and the cold sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours. A gentle simmer cooks the large bird and filling through evenly without breaking the meat apart. A hard boil can toughen the proteins and make the turkey fall apart, so keep the liquid at a low simmer.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, sugar, meat, lemon, pepper, bread, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, sugar, meat, lemon, pepper, bread, parsley. 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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