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To Boil Turkey

A whole turkey stuffed with bread, herbs, suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg, then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing bread, herbs, beef suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the turkey's crop and tie it closed.

Boil and finish

  1. Place the turkey in a floured cloth and boil in cold water. Skim often and cover tightly.

  2. Boil for half an hour for a young turkey.

  3. Remove from heat. Let steam finish cooking for a few 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main body of meat that the stuffing and cooking method are built around.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and binds the stuffing so it holds together.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together as it sets with heat.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during boiling.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Skim often and cover tightly. Boiling releases foam and impurities that cloud the liquid and can cook onto the bird if left. Covering keeps the water at a steady simmer so the turkey cooks evenly without 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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