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Turkey Dumplings

A baked dumpling made with shortcake dough, turkey, celery, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley 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 ↓

Turkey Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dumplings

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roll out the shortcake dough on a floured surface and cut into 4‑inch circular pieces.

  3. Spread each piece generously with butter.

  4. In a bowl, combine the chopped turkey, dressing, minced celery, and a little giblet gravy.

  5. Place a tablespoon of the turkey mixture in the center of each dough piece.

  6. Fold the dough over the filling, sealing the edges, and shape into balls.

  7. Arrange the dumplings in a deep baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Make the Bechamel sauce

  1. For the Bechamel sauce, cook the white stock with onion, carrot, bay leaf, parsley, and peppercorns until reduced to 1 cup.

  2. In a separate pan, brown the flour in the butter, then add the stock and beat until smooth.

  3. Stir in the hot cream and season with salt and pepper.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Shortcake dough
Forms the tender pastry wrapper that encloses the filling and bakes into a soft, rich casing.
Cold turkey
Provides the main meaty filling that gives the dumplings their savory body.
Flour
Browned in butter and mixed with stock, it thickens the sauce into a smooth, stable base.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the pastry and, browned with flour, to the sauce.
Hot cream
Enriches the sauce, adding body, smoothness and a creamy mouthfeel.
White stock
Supplies the liquid base of the sauce, carrying savory flavor into it as it reduces.

The step that matters

Brown the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour in fat for a short time removes its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding stock too quickly, or not beating until smooth, can leave lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, turkey, celery, carrot, parsley, flour, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, turkey, celery, carrot, parsley, flour, cream. 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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