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To Roast a Turkey Poult with Truffles

A roasted turkey poult stuffed with a forcemeat of liver, bacon, bread crumbs, herbs, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey Poult with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Prepare the turkey poult by skewering it and cutting off the lower part of the bill.

  2. Twist the neck skin around and bring the head down with the bill forward.

  3. Cut off the toenails and bring the feet close to the thighs.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing the liver, bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, chives, thyme, pepper, and salt.

  2. Combine the forcemeat with the egg yolk and truffles to fill the bird.

Roast and serve

  1. Lard the turkey poult and roast it for about an hour, or longer if large.

  2. Serve with bread sauce or truffle sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chive + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey poult
Forms the main body of the dish, so it must be cooked through while staying moist.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and bind the forcemeat, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Truffles
Contribute a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the stuffing and bird.

The step that matters

Lard the turkey poult and roast it for about an hour. A lean bird like a poult can dry out before the stuffing is hot. Larding adds fat that bastes the meat during roasting, and the roast should run until the centre is fully cooked, longer for a larger bird.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, egg, truffle):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, egg, truffle. 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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