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Turkey in a Hurry

A braised turkey cooked with lard, parsley, eschalots, mushrooms, garlic, lemon, veal, ham, white wine, broth, and cullis.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkey in a Hurry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Truss the turkey with the legs inward and flatten it as much as possible.

  2. In a stewpan, heat melted lard and add chopped parsley, eschalots, mushrooms, and garlic. Sauté briefly.

  3. Add the juice of half a lemon to keep the turkey white.

Braise

  1. Transfer the turkey to another stewpan with veal, ham, and melted lard.

  2. Season with whole pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover with slices of lard and cook over low heat for 30 minutes.

  4. Add white wine and broth, then finish braising.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Skim and strain the sauce.

  2. Add cullis to thicken it.

  3. Serve the turkey with the sauce poured over it, garnished with lemon.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Is the main protein that is braised until tender and moist.
Lard
Carries flavour and fat that keeps the meat moist during cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the braising liquid.
Cullis
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the turkey.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the turkey pale.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice. Acid helps keep the cut surface of the turkey pale, so it is added early in the sauté rather than later. Too little or too late and the meat can darken.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, parsley, mushroom, clove, lemon, veal, ham):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, parsley, mushroom, clove, lemon, veal, 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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