Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Turkey

A turkey stuffed with livers, mushrooms, and bacon, stewed in broth and wine, served with a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

To Stew Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Stuff the turkey

  1. Bone the turkey.

  2. Fill the carcass with a ragout of livers, mushrooms, and bacon.

  3. Season the ragout with salt, spices, parsley, and onions.

  4. Sew the turkey up.

  5. Shape it nicely.

  6. Place a thin slice of bacon on the breast.

  7. Wrap it in a cloth.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Stew the turkey in a pot with broth, white wine, and sweet herbs.

  2. Once done, strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan.

  3. Remove the fat.

  4. Reduce the liquid to a sauce, adding coulis.

Finish and serve

  1. Unwrap the turkey.

  2. Remove the bacon.

  3. Dry off excess grease.

  4. Serve with the sauce.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and is cooked gently by stewing until tender.
Livers
Add a rich, savoury flavour and a soft texture to the stuffing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the meat and flavours the stuffing and breast.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the ragout filling.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid, helping build the sauce flavour.
Coulis
Adds body and concentrated flavour when reduced into the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid to a sauce, adding coulis. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid as water evaporates. Removing the fat first keeps the sauce from tasting greasy, and adding coulis late avoids over-reducing its sweetness and thickening power.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, liver, mushroom, onion, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, liver, mushroom, onion, white wine. 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.

More turkey stew recipes

with Celery 5 See all 13 →

You might also like

Turkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipesTurkey DressingTurkey Dressing24 recipes