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Roast Turkey, a LA Chipolat

A roast turkey stuffed with ham or bacon, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, bay leaf, thyme, garlic, and optional poultry livers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey, a LA Chipolat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Cut the turkey into pieces the size of a small walnut.

  2. Pound the parings with the fat ham or bacon and add to the turkey pieces.

  3. Season with mignionette pepper, coarse sea salt, grated nutmeg, bay leaf, thyme, and garlic.

  4. Simmer the mixture on low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool and partially set, then stuff it into the turkey.

Truss and rest

  1. Truss the turkey by drawing the crop up in a purse-like form and fastening it with twine.

  2. Place the turkey on an earthen dish and refrigerate overnight if time permits.

  3. Truss the turkey for roasting the next day.

Wrap and roast

  1. Cover the turkey breast with thin layers of fat bacon.

  2. Wrap the entire turkey in buttered thick paper and secure it with string.

  3. Roast the turkey until cooked through, being careful not to tear the crop when removing it from the spit.

Serve

  1. Serve with a rich Perigueux sauce and garnish with quenelles of fowl and truffles if desired.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

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

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, cooked whole and stuffed.
Fat ham or bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the stuffing and meat moist as it cooks.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle aromatic flavour to the stuffing.
Thyme
Adds herbal aroma that complements the poultry and pork fat.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during the simmer.

The step that matters

Cooling the stuffing before filling the bird. The mixture should cool and partially set so it holds its shape inside the turkey. Stuffing it hot can make it loose and greasy, and it may cook unevenly.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver. 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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