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Stewed Turkey, En Daube

A slow‑cooked turkey stewed with bacon, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Stewed Turkey, En Daube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress the turkey, cutting off the neck, tips of the wings, and feet.

  2. Cut the bacon into slices and cover the bottom of a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Place the turkey on top of the bacon.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the garlic, carrots, onions, and herbs.

  4. Pour the stock or water and white wine over everything.

  5. Cover the stewpan hermetically with buttered paper and a lid.

  6. Let it simmer for 6 hours, turning the turkey halfway through.

Serve

  1. Strain the sauce and pour it over the turkey before serving.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly into the pan, adding fat and savoury flavour to the turkey and sauce.
Stock or water
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the turkey moist and forms the base of the sauce.
White wine or brandy
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid and sauce.
Carrots
Release sweetness and flavour into the cooking liquid as they simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering the turkey for 6 hours. Long, gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender. A hard boil toughens and dries the muscle fibres, so the liquid should only bubble lightly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper, garlic, carrot, onion, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, garlic, carrot, onion, white wine. 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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