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A Second-day Turkey

A turkey covered with boiled cold ham slices, cooked in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and chicken work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

A Second-day Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the turkey's whole side with thick slices of boiled cold ham and bind them in place with twine or tapes.

  2. Place the turkey, ham side up, in a covered roaster.

Cook

  1. Thin leftover gravy with boiling water, strain, and pour it around the turkey.

  2. If no leftover gravy, use stock or boiling water with butter.

  3. Cover the roaster and cook gently for 1 hour, basting four times.

  4. Fifteen minutes before serving, cut and remove the strings, take off the ham, and keep it warm.

  5. If the turkey is not browned, dredge it with flour and baste again, then close the oven to brown it.

Serve

  1. Cut the ham into strips and arrange around the turkey when serving.

  2. Strain the gravy, thicken if necessary, and boil before serving in a gravy boat.

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 + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

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 carries the heat through its meat during the gentle covered cooking.
Boiled cold ham
Adds salty, savory flavor and a moist layer over the turkey's surface.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and flavor to the roaster, and becomes the sauce served with the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the liquid used when no leftover gravy is available.
Flour
Dredged onto the turkey so it forms a coating that helps it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the turkey with flour. The turkey is cooked covered and gently, so its surface may stay pale. Dredging with flour and baste again, then closing the oven, helps the surface brown through dry heat and the Maillard reaction.

“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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