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Capilotade of Turkey

A creamy mushroom sauce for cold roast turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Capilotade of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold roast turkey into small pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour and stir constantly until smooth.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  4. Pour in the stock or cream and add the turkey pieces and mushrooms.

  5. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

  6. Just before serving, stir in the wine.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Stock or cream
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and adds body and moisture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and savoury depth to the gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter. Flour must be stirred constantly so it cooks evenly into the fat without lumps; adding liquid to unevenly cooked flour leaves a lumpy, pasty gravy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, cream, turkey, mushroom, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, cream, turkey, mushroom, wine. 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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