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To Bone, and Cook a Boned Turkey

A boned turkey cooked with a gravy made from its bones, vegetables, and spices, served with a jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Bone, and Cook a Boned Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the turkey

  1. Lay the turkey on a table and use a knife to carefully cut the flesh from the bones, keeping the skin intact.

  2. Remove the bones from the turkey, splitting the back halfway up.

  3. Prepare stuffing by mixing finely chopped turkey meat, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, sweet marjoram, butter, and eggs.

  4. Fill the turkey with the stuffing and sew it up to maintain its shape.

Make the gravy

  1. In a deep saucepan, combine the cracked calves' feet, removed turkey bones, onion, carrot, mace, pepper, salt, and cloves.

  2. Place the turkey on top of the bones and add 2 quarts of water.

  3. Cover tightly and simmer for 3 hours.

  4. If there is less than 1 quart of gravy, add more water and boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Beat the whites and shells of 2 eggs and stir into the gravy, boiling for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain the gravy through a cloth into a jelly mold.

Brown and serve

  1. Remove the turkey, dust it with flour, baste with butter, and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

  2. Once the turkey is cold and the jelly is set, serve the turkey with jelly on the breast.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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, providing the meat that is stuffed and served.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together, and their whites and shells clarify the gravy as it boils.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the stuffing, giving it body and a softer texture.
Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the gravy, helping it set into a firm jelly when cold.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the stuffing, and helps the skin brown in the oven.
Flour
Dusted on the turkey before browning, helping the surface brown and form a crust.

The step that matters

Clarifying the gravy with egg whites and shells. Egg whites coagulate as the liquid heats and trap cloudy particles, so the gravy clears. Boiling too vigorously or stirring too early can break up the raft and leave the jelly cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, onion, carrot, pepper, clove, flour, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, onion, carrot, pepper, clove, flour, butter. 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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