Skip to main content
Main

Turkey, Braised, Plain

Braised turkey with ham fat, cloves, peppercorns, herbs, and vegetables, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Turkey, Braised, Plain

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine sliced vegetables, fat ham, giblets, cloves, peppercorns, and herbs in a pot.

  2. Add sherry and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes, shaking the pan often.

Braise and finish

  1. Pour in stock to half cover the turkey and cook for 2 to 5 hours, depending on the bird's size.

  2. Once cooked, remove bacon and glaze the breast.

  3. If the breast is not brown enough, use a salamander.

  4. Skim the gravy and reduce it, thickening it with roux.

  5. Pour some gravy over the turkey.

  6. Serve the turkey with the remaining gravy and garnish with stewed carrots, onions, and celery.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 becomes tender through slow, moist braising.
Fat ham
Renders fat and savory flavor into the pot as the braising liquid cooks.
Stock
Provides the braising liquid that keeps the turkey moist and builds the gravy.
Roux
Thickens the reduced gravy so it coats the turkey and serving plate.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid, which is optional in the recipe.

The step that matters

Glazing the breast under a salamander. The breast is lean and can dry out or burn quickly under high heat, so it should be browned briefly and watched closely until golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, clove, sherry, carrot, celery):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, clove, sherry, carrot, celery. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipes