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Forcemeat Stuffing for Turkey

A forcemeat stuffing for turkey made with bread crumbs, beef suet, veal, anchovy, oysters, herbs, spices, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Forcemeat Stuffing for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, beef suet, and lean veal.

  2. Add chopped anchovy, oysters, lemon peel, sweet herbs, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix in the egg and butter until well combined.

Stuff and cook the turkey

  1. Stuff the mixture into the crops of the turkey or turkey poults.

  2. Sew up the skin and boil the turkey as you would a chicken.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Bulk and absorb moisture, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Lean veal
Provides savory meatiness and structure to the forcemeat.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.

The step that matters

Stuff the mixture into the crops of the turkey or turkey poults.. The forcemeat should be packed loosely enough to leave room for expansion. Overpacking can make the stuffing dense and slow the cooking of the centre, while the bird's interior must still reach a safe temperature.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beef, veal, anchovy, oyster, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, veal, anchovy, oyster, lemon, nutmeg. 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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