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Boiling Poultry

A boiled turkey stuffed with oyster and cream forcemeat, served with oyster sauce and garnished with barberries and lemon.

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. Do not dress the turkey until 3-4 days after killing for best results.

  2. After scalding, draw the turkey at the rump, 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, then mix the chopped oysters, lemon peel, salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and cream into a light forcemeat.

  4. Stuff the turkey's craw with part of the forcemeat and form the rest into balls.

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

Cook and serve

  1. Place the turkey in a kettle of cold water, cover it, and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  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. Serve the turkey with oyster sauce poured over it and the forcemeat balls arranged around it, garnished 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. Butter + oystertop 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 of the dish, cooked gently by simmering and steaming.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when shaped into balls and cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the forcemeat, giving it a softer, moister texture.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the forcemeat and the oyster sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the forcemeat mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly after boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and prevents it from toughening or breaking apart. A hard boil can make turkey tough and dry.

“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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