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A Turkey and Truffles

A turkey stuffed with truffles, veal, ham, and herbs, roasted and served with a truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

A Turkey and Truffles

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. Prepare the turkey three days in advance.

  2. Place 1 pound of truffles inside the crop and hang the turkey by its legs.

  3. When ready to cook, remove the truffles, slice half, and place them between the skin and breast.

  4. Chop the remaining truffles and place them in the carcass.

  5. In a bowl, mix veal, fat from ham, and lean ham.

  6. Add shallot, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  7. Incorporate eggs and bread crumbs, then fill the crop of the turkey with this mixture.

  8. Wrap the turkey in bacon and place lemon slices between the breast and bone.

  9. Wrap tightly in paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the turkey on a spit for about 2 hours at 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, combine the remaining truffles, stock, and sherry.

  3. Cover with bacon and cook on low heat for about 2 hours.

  4. Once cooked, slice the truffles thinly and strain the cooking liquid.

  5. Reduce it to a glaze and mix in the truffle slices.

  6. When the turkey is done, remove the paper and bacon, glaze it, and serve with the truffle sauce.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Turkey + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Truffle + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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, carrying the stuffing and truffles while it roasts.
Truffles
Supply the aroma and flavour that define the dish, infused into the bird and the sauce.
Veal
Adds body and moisture to the stuffing mixture.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing a light, set texture.
Bacon
Wraps the bird to baste it with its fat and keep the meat moist.

The step that matters

Reduce the cooking liquid to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the stock and sherry into a thick, flavourful liquid. If it is under-reduced the sauce stays thin; if over-reduced it becomes too salty and sticky.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, truffle, veal, ham, thyme, parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, truffle, veal, ham, thyme, parsley, egg. 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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