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Boiling Poultry

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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. Do not dress the turkey until 3–4 days after killing.

  2. Pluck the turkey, draw it at the rump, cut off the legs, and tie the thighs into the body with string.

  3. Remove the head and neck, then mix the grated bread, chopped oysters, lemon peel, salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and cream into a light stuffing.

  4. Stuff the turkey with part of the mixture and form the rest into balls.

  5. Sew up the turkey, dredge it with flour, and place it in a kettle of cold water.

Boil and serve

  1. Cover the kettle and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

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

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

  4. To serve, pour some oyster sauce over the turkey, arrange the force‑meat balls around it, and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 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
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently by simmering and steam.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together as a light, cohesive mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and balls.
Grated bread
Soaks up liquid and gives the stuffing a light, tender body.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing and sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the stuffing and sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a slow simmer keeps the turkey and stuffing tender. A hard, rolling boil would toughen the meat and can break up the delicate stuffing balls.

“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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