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Truffled Turkey Roasted

A roasted turkey filled with truffles, chestnuts, and seasoned trimmings, served with a sauce made from the cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Truffled Turkey Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare and stuff the turkey as in Perigueux.

  2. In a stewpan, combine grated bacon and butter; add truffles and chopped trimmings.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper and salt; sweat for a few minutes and let cool.

  4. Add roasted chestnuts to the mixture and fill the turkey.

  5. Truss and roast the turkey in the English way.

Braise and finish

  1. Cover the turkey with veal and bacon trimmings, then tie it up.

  2. Place the turkey in an oval stewpan with bacon fat, carrot, onion, and seasoned faggot.

  3. Moisten with Madeira, cover tightly, and cook on a very gentle fire.

  4. Once done, untie the turkey and skim the liquid.

  5. Add chopped truffles to the liquid, boil for a few minutes, and thicken with pounded chestnuts.

  6. Serve the sauce under the turkey.

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

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Chestnut + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chestnut + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Is the main body that is stuffed, roasted and then gently braised until tender.
Truffles
Provide the dominant aroma that flavours both the stuffing and the finished sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavour of the truffles through the stuffing.
Roasted chestnuts
Add body to the stuffing and, pounded, thicken the sauce.
Madeira
Moistens the braise and adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the turkey on a very gentle fire. Covered, low heat braises the meat slowly so it stays moist and tender while the truffle flavour infuses the liquid. Too much heat can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too fast.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, truffle, pepper, veal, carrot, onion):

  1. Chestnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, truffle, pepper, veal, carrot, onion. 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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