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Boiling Poultry

A boiled turkey stuffed with a mixture of grated bread, oysters, lemon peel, spices, butter, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiling Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Pluck the turkey and draw it at the rump.

  2. Cut off the legs and tuck the ends of the thighs into the body, tying them with string.

  3. Cut off the head and neck.

Make and stuff

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated bread, chopped oysters, lemon peel, salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and cream to make a light stuffing.

  2. Stuff the turkey with part of the mixture.

  3. Form the rest of the mixture into balls.

  4. Sew up the turkey and dredge it with flour.

Boil and serve

  1. Place it in a kettle of cold water and cover it tightly.

  2. Bring the kettle to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  3. Once boiling, reduce the heat and let it simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let it sit covered to finish cooking in the steam.

  5. Serve the turkey with oyster sauce poured over it and the stuffing balls arranged around it.

  6. Garnish with barberries and 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 that is gently cooked by simmering and steaming.
Penny loaf
Bread crumbs soak up liquids and give the stuffing a light, binding body.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour that carries through the stuffing and sauce.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the stuffing together and giving it structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture in the stuffing.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the stuffing soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly after bringing to a boil. Once boiling, reducing the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the bird tender. A hard rolling boil toughens the proteins and can break apart the stuffing balls and dredged coating.

“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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