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Roast Turkey, a LA Chipola

A roast turkey seasoned with bacon, herbs, and spices, wrapped in buttered paper and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey, a LA Chipola

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Cut the turkey into pieces the size of a small walnut.

  2. Pound the parings with the fat ham or bacon and add to the turkey pieces.

  3. Season with mignonette pepper, coarse sea salt, grated nutmeg, chopped bay leaf, thyme, and minced garlic.

  4. If using, pound the fat livers of poultry separately and add them.

  5. Set the stewpan on low heat and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  6. Remove from heat and let cool slightly to set before stuffing the turkey.

Truss and chill

  1. Stuff the turkey and truss it securely, closing the paunch with twine.

  2. Place the turkey on an earthen dish and refrigerate overnight if possible.

  3. Truss the turkey for roasting the next day.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover the turkey breast with thin layers of fat bacon.

  2. Wrap the entire turkey in buttered thick paper and secure it to the spit with string.

  3. Roast the turkey, being careful not to tear the crop when removing it from the spit.

  4. Serve with a rich Perigueux sauce and garnish with quenelles of fowl and truffles if desired.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Fat ham or bacon
Adds fat that keeps the lean meat moist and carries flavour through the stuffing.
Fat livers of poultry
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the stuffing.
Thin layers of fat bacon
Covers the breast, basting it with fat as it roasts to limit drying.
Butter
Enriches the wrapping and adds fat that helps the paper-wrapped bird brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Let the stuffing cool slightly before stuffing the turkey. Cooling lets the mixture set so it holds its shape and does not run out or loosen the bird's structure while it is trussed and handled. Stuffing it while still hot and loose makes it harder to pack and more likely to leak fat during roasting.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver. 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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