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Braised Turkey

Braised turkey stuffed with bread crumbs, salt pork, herbs, and vegetables, cooked in water and served with gravy and cranberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turkeys

  1. Singe and draw the turkeys the day before cooking.

  2. Make stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, salt pork, parsley, summer savory, salt, and pepper.

  3. Fill the turkeys with the stuffing and truss them.

Braise

  1. In a roasting pan, layer sliced carrot, onion, celery, bay leaves, salt, and whole pepper.

  2. Place the turkeys on top of the vegetables and add boiling water.

  3. Cook in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2.5 to 3 hours, basting every 15 minutes.

  4. Once browned and cooked, remove the turkeys and set aside.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt butter and add flour, browning it.

  2. Strain the cooking liquid from the roasting pan into the flour mixture, season, and stir until it boils.

  3. Let the gravy simmer until it reaches the desired consistency.

  4. If desired, add chopped mushrooms to the gravy.

  5. Serve the turkey with the gravy and cranberry 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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkeys
Provide the main meat, which is braised in the pan with vegetables and water.
Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb juices, keeping the filling moist.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into gravy when browned with butter.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour for the gravy. Cooking the flour in fat until it browns develops flavor and removes raw starch taste, and adding liquid too early or too cold can cause lumps. Stirring steadily helps keep the gravy smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, pork, parsley, summer savory, pepper, carrot):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, pork, parsley, summer savory, pepper, carrot. 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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