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To Boil Turkey

A boiled turkey stuffed with bread, herbs, suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Boil Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing bread, herbs, beef suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the turkey's crop and tie it closed.

Boil and steam

  1. Wrap the turkey in a floured cloth and place it in cold water.

  2. Skim the water often and cover the pot.

  3. Boil a young turkey of moderate size for 30 minutes, then remove from heat and let steam finish cooking.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

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

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Is the main protein, cooked gently in water so it stays moist and tender.
Bread
Forms the body of the stuffing, soaking up butter and egg to stay soft inside the bird.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, softening its texture.

The step that matters

Skimming and covering the pot. Water kept at a gentle simmer under a lid holds steady heat and keeps the turkey moist. Skimming removes foam and fat so the broth stays clear and the meat stays clean-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, beef, ham, anchovy, butter, egg):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Red currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, beef, ham, anchovy, butter, 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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