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Jellied Turkey

A dish of boiled turkey pieces set in a seasoned stock that hardens into a jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jellied Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the turkey

  1. Place turkey pieces in a kettle and cover with cold water, three times the depth of the meat.

  2. Add salt and bring to a boil, skimming thoroughly before boiling.

  3. Cook slowly until the meat falls from the bones.

  4. Boil down the liquid until it just covers the meat.

Set the jelly

  1. Season the liquid with salt, pepper, and celery salt to taste.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones and place it in a dish or bread pan, laying it lengthwise for nicer slices.

  3. Strain the liquid over the meat and refrigerate until hardened.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the meat and collagen-rich connective tissue that releases gelatin into the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Boil down the liquid until it just covers the meat. Reducing the broth concentrates the gelatin released from bones and connective tissue, so it will set firm when chilled. Too much water leaves the jelly loose.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper. 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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