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To Boil Turkey

A boiled turkey stuffed with bread, herbs, suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, spices, and egg, served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing bread, herbs, beef suet, ham, lemon peel, anchovy, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the turkey's crop and tie it closed.

Boil and serve

  1. Wrap the turkey in a floured cloth and place it in cold water. Skim often and cover tightly.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes; then remove from heat and let steam finish cooking.

  3. Serve with a thick oyster sauce poured over the turkey.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaks up moisture and gives the stuffing body.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together while cooking.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Skim often and cover tightly. Foam and scum rise to the surface of simmering water and can cloud the bird and broth. Skimming keeps the liquid clean, while a tight cover holds in heat and steam so the turkey cooks evenly.

“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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