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Turkey Boned and Forced

A turkey that has been boned and stuffed with sausage meat, then roasted.

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 turkey

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

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

  3. Plump the breast and restore the turkey's original form, then tie it securely at both ends and the legs.

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

  5. Lay twine over the back, passing it under the skewer ends and crossing it in the center, then fasten it at the neck.

Roast

  1. If a cradle spit is unavailable, use a bottle jack to hold the turkey, supporting it with a string across the back.

  2. Flour the turkey well and place it far from the fire until heated through, basting continuously with butter.

  3. Roast 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

Sausage meat
Fills the boned bird, adding savory flavor and moisture to the stuffed turkey.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and keeps the surface rich and moist as it roasts.
Flour
Coats the skin so it browns and forms a crisp, golden surface during roasting.
Turkey
Forms the main body that is boned, stuffed, and roasted as the dish's centerpiece.

The step that matters

Basting continuously with butter while roasting far from the fire. Keeping the surface coated and moving heat gently through the bird prevents the skin from scorching before the stuffed interior is fully heated, while butter helps it brown evenly.

“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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