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To Boil Turkey

A boiled turkey stuffed with lemon peel, oysters or anchovy, butter, suet, and egg, served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boil Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters if using.

  2. Stuff the turkey with lemon peel, oysters or anchovy, butter, suet, and egg.

  3. Fasten the skin of the turkey.

  4. Wrap the turkey in a floured cloth.

Boil and make the sauce

  1. Boil the turkey until cooked through.

  2. Prepare a rich oyster sauce with butter, cream, and soy sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the turkey.

Finish

  1. Draw the sinews of the leg.

  2. Twist the head under the wing.

  3. Avoid tearing the liver.

  4. Use sausage meat or bread stuffing.

  5. Baste the turkey well while roasting.

  6. Use a paper strip to prevent scorching.

  7. Serve with gravy and bread 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

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
Is the main meat, cooked through by boiling and gently moistened by the sauce.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and the oyster sauce.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and flavorful during cooking.
Cream
Makes the oyster sauce smooth and rich, softening its savoury flavour.
Oyster sauce
Adds a salty, savoury flavour that seasons the bird and its sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the turkey until cooked through. The bird is wrapped in cloth, so its doneness cannot be seen easily. The thickest parts, especially near the stuffing, must reach a fully cooked temperature, while overcooking dries the meat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, oyster, butter, egg, flour, sauce, cream):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, oyster, butter, egg, flour, sauce, cream. 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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