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Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudrée

A turkey seasoned with salt, sugar, spices, and lemon, then stuffed, boiled, and served cold with a lemon‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudrée

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Wipe the turkey inside with a dry cloth; do not wash it.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt inside to draw out the blood; let it sit for 2 hours, then drain and wipe again.

  3. Rub the outside with 4 ounces of salt mixed with 1 tablespoon of sugar; turn the turkey daily for 4 days.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the turkey with equal parts sausage meat and bread crumbs soaked in boiling milk or cream, seasoned with lemon rind, nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and fine herbs.

  2. Sew the turkey securely, roll it in a cloth, and tie it at both ends.

  3. Boil gently in water for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, sprinkle with fine bread crumbs mixed with chopped parsley.

  2. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, lemon rind, mustard, sugar, oil, and salt, mixed until smooth.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  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

Hen turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and served cold.
Sausage meat and bread crumbs
Fills the bird with moist, savoury stuffing that keeps the meat tender.
Dry salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat through the curing rub.
Lemon rind and juice
Adds aroma and bright acidity that cut the richness of the meat and sauce.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently in water for 3 to 4 hours. Boiling too hard can break up the meat and toughen its surface, while gentle heat cooks the bird evenly and keeps it moist and intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, sugar, meat, lemon, nutmeg, bread, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, sugar, meat, lemon, nutmeg, bread, 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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