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Steamed Turkey

A turkey steamed with oysters, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with a sauce of oyster gravy thickened with flour or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Steamed Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Soak the turkey in cold water for 20 to 30 minutes to remove blood.

  2. Hang the turkey in a cool place for 24 hours.

  3. Remove all pinfeathers, rinse the turkey in cold water, and dry with a clean cloth.

  4. Rub the inside with salt and pepper, then fill with washed oysters.

Steam and check

  1. Sew up the turkey and place it in a steamer over boiling water.

  2. Cover with a clean cloth and steam for 2.5 to 3 hours until tender.

  3. Check doneness by inserting a fork into the breast; no reddish juice should flow.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and mix it with oyster sauce made from stewed oysters thickened with flour or butter.

  2. If desired, add a little boiled cream to the sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the turkey and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 is cooked through by gentle steaming until tender.
Oysters
Stuffed inside the bird and stewed into the sauce, adding a briny, savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the oyster sauce, giving it body so it coats the turkey.
Butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the oyster sauce, giving a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream
Optionally added to the sauce, adding richness and a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a fork. Steaming is gentle and the time range is wide, so the bird can look done or remain underdone. Testing the thickest part of the breast and checking that the juice runs clear shows whether the meat is fully cooked before serving.

“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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