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A turkey stuffed with forcemeat, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the legs from the turkey by cutting through the skin around the first joint and pulling them off.

  2. Wash the turkey thoroughly and dry it.

  3. Fill the breast with your chosen forcemeat.

  4. Truss the turkey by drawing the legs into the body and breaking the breastbone for a plump appearance.

Simmer

  1. Place the turkey in a pot with enough warm water to cover it by an inch.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Cool the water by adding cold water, leaving enough to keep the turkey covered.

  4. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  5. Simmer the turkey gently for 1.5 to 2.25 hours, depending on size.

Serve

  1. Serve with oyster sauce, celery sauce, or white sauce, and optionally with boiled tongue, ham, or cheek of bacon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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, cooked gently in water until tender.
Forcemeat
Fills the breast, adding moisture and flavour as the bird cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. Boiling toughens the meat and its proteins, so the water should only be brought to a boil briefly before cooling and simmering slowly for the full time.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter. 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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