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Turkey Boned and Forced

A boned turkey stuffed with sausage meat, then roasted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turkey Boned and Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Remove all bones from the turkey except for the pinions, without opening the bird.

  2. Shape the turkey and fill it completely with sausage meat, starting with the legs and wings.

  3. Restore the turkey's original form and tie it securely at both ends and the legs.

Truss and skewer

  1. Insert a skewer through the ends and body, and another through the wings and body.

  2. Lay twine over the back, securing it under the skewer ends and around the pinion.

  3. If using a cradle spit, support the turkey with a string across the back and under the skewer points.

Roast

  1. Flour the turkey well.

  2. Place it far from the fire until heated through.

  3. Baste it continuously with butter while roasting for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the dish; boning lets it be shaped and filled into a compact roast.
Sausage meat
Fills the cavity and its fat keeps the surrounding meat moist as it cooks.
Butter
Basting adds fat that promotes golden browning and a richer, moister skin.
Flour
Coating the bird helps the surface brown and form a crisp, golden crust.

The step that matters

Place it far from the fire until heated through. The stuffed bird is thick, so heat must travel slowly to the centre. Keeping it back from the fire lets the interior cook through without the outside scorching or drying.

“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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