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To Steam a Turkey or Chicken

A turkey or chicken stuffed with oysters, steamed, and served with a creamy oyster gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Steam a Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steam

  1. Fill the body of the dressed turkey or chicken with oysters.

  2. Place it in a dish or pan and set it in the steamer.

  3. Steam for 3 to 4 hours until fully cooked.

  4. Remove the turkey or chicken.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy from the pan.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter.

  3. Add coarse sea salt and the oyster liquor to the gravy.

  4. Warm the oysters in the gravy.

  5. Whiten the sauce with a little boiled cream.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the turkey.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey or chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently by steam until done.
Oysters
Stuffed into the body, they flavour the bird and the gravy with their briny taste.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the turkey rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, smoothing its texture.
Oyster liquor
Adds the concentrated sea flavour of the oysters to the gravy.
Boiled cream
Lightens the colour of the sauce and adds a smooth, mild richness.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 to 4 hours until fully cooked. Steam heats the bird more gently than dry roasting, but it can still be underdone at the centre. The stuffed oysters and thick body need enough time for heat to reach the middle, so check doneness by the thickest part before serving.

“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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