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Boudins of Turkey

A turkey sausage made by simmering turkey with onions, stock, and seasonings, then forming into balls, coating, and frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boudins of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the chopped onions for a few seconds.

  2. Add the flour and mix well, then stir in the diced turkey.

  3. Pour in the turkey stock and simmer, stirring frequently, until well combined.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then quickly stir in the egg yolks without allowing the mixture to boil.

  5. Pour the mixture onto a dish and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, divide into equal parts and shape into small egg-sized balls.

  2. Coat each ball in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard or dripping until golden brown and serve.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives it its main savoury flavour.
Butter
Enriches the filling and adds richness to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the filling holds together when cooled and shaped.
Turkey stock
Provides liquid that binds the filling and carries its seasoning.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm, sliceable texture when cooled.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. If the mixture boils after the egg yolks go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the filling grainy and uneven instead of smooth and well bound.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, butter, flour, pepper, sugar, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, butter, flour, pepper, sugar, egg. 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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