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Boned Turkey or Chicken

A stuffed turkey or chicken filled with veal, ham, and cracker crumbs, baked and served cold with parsley, jelly, carrots, and beets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boned Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Bone the turkey as directed.

  2. Disjoint the chicken, removing skin, sinews, and bones.

  3. Cut the meat from the thighs and breast into long thin strips. Set the strips aside.

  4. Chop the remaining chicken meat with the veal.

  5. Add cracker crumbs to the mixture. Moisten the mixture with hot stock. Season the mixture to taste.

Stuff and tie

  1. Fill the legs and wings of the turkey with the mixture.

  2. Layer the fillets, force-meat, and slices of tongue or ham inside the turkey.

  3. Sew the turkey. Tie the turkey into its natural shape.

Steam, bake and serve

  1. Place the bones and trimmings in a kettle. Cover the kettle with cold water.

  2. Steam the turkey over the bones for three hours. Remove the cloth.

  3. Dredge the turkey with salt and flour. Bake the turkey at 400°F (200°C) for one hour or until browned.

  4. Serve the turkey cold. Garnish with parsley, jelly, carrots, and beets cut into shapes.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + chickentop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Turkey + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Chicken + thymetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Chicken + vealtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and crumbs so the stuffing holds together when sliced.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the stock and add body, giving the force-meat a soft, cohesive texture.
Veal
Adds a mild, tender meat base that blends with the chicken in the force-meat.
Potted ham or tongue
Adds savoury flavour and a contrasting layer inside the sliced turkey.

The step that matters

Steam the turkey over the bones for three hours. Gentle, moist steam cooks the large bird through without drying the stuffing, while the bones and trimmings add flavour to the liquid. Keeping the water below a hard boil helps the meat stay tender.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, chicken, veal, egg, pepper, ham):

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, chicken, veal, egg, pepper, ham. 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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