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To Stew a Turkey Brown

A stew of a whole turkey browned and cooked in a brown gravy with anchovy, shallot, thyme, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Stew a Turkey Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Fill the turkey breast skin with force-meat.

  2. Place the anchovy, shallot, and thyme in the belly.

  3. Melt butter in a stewpan.

  4. Dust the turkey with flour.

  5. Fry until golden brown.

Stew

  1. Transfer the turkey to a deep stewpan or pot that fits it snugly.

  2. Add enough gravy to barely cover the turkey, along with white wine, whole pepper, mace, cloves, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover the pot.

  4. Stew for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the turkey.

  6. Keep it warm, covered by the fire.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the sauce until reduced to about 1 pint.

  2. Strain the sauce.

  3. Add the egg yolks and butter rolled in flour.

  4. Stir until thickened.

Serve

  1. Place the turkey in a dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over it.

  3. Cut off the tops of the French loaves and remove the crumbs.

  4. Fry the loaves until golden brown.

  5. Fill the loaves with stewed oysters.

  6. Arrange them around the dish.

  7. Garnish with lemon.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Thyme + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,503 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Turkey + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main dish; browning and slow stewing make it tender and moist.
Egg yolks
Thicken the strained sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and enriches the browning of the turkey.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich stewed gravy.
Flour
Dusted on the turkey, it helps form a golden crust; rolled butter thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until thickened. Egg yolks scramble if the sauce gets too hot. Keep heat low and stir constantly so they thicken it smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, anchovy, shallot, butter, flour, white wine):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, anchovy, shallot, butter, flour, white wine. 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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