Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Turkey Boned and Forced
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turkey
Remove all bones from the turkey except the pinions, without opening the bird.
Shape the turkey and fill it with sausage meat, starting with the legs and wings.
Plump the breast and restore the turkey's original form, then tie it securely at both ends and the legs.
Insert a skewer through the ends and body, and another through the wings and body.
Wrap twine over the back, securing it under the skewer ends and around the pinions.
Roast
If a cradle spit is unavailable, use a bottle jack to hold the turkey, supporting it with a string.
Flour the turkey well and place it far from the fire until heated through, basting continuously with butter.
Roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Make the gravy
For gravy, boil the bones in 1½ pints of water with salt, celery, peppercorns, and parsley.
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.
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Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,810 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together540 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Flour and butter 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
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat cooks through during roasting.
- Sausage meat
- Fills the bird, adding richness and moisture to the surrounding meat as it cooks.
- Flour
- Coats the skin so it browns and crisps during roasting.
- Butter
- Basting fat that adds moisture and promotes browning on the skin.
The step that matters
Place the turkey far from the fire. Gentle, distant heat cooks the bird through without scorching the floured outside, and continuous basting keeps the skin moist and evenly browned.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, flour, butter, parsley):
- Thymefits better
- Sagefits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, flour, butter, parsley. 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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