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To Stew a Turkey Brown

A stew of a turkey breast filled with forcemeat, anchovy, shallot, thyme, and spices, finished with a brown gravy and served with fried French loaves.

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 with forcemeat and place the anchovy, shallot, and thyme inside the belly.

  2. Lard the breast with bacon.

  3. Melt butter in a stew pan.

  4. Dust the turkey with flour.

  5. Fry the turkey until golden brown.

  6. Transfer the turkey to a deep stew pan.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Add enough gravy to barely cover the turkey.

  2. Pour in the white wine.

  3. Add whole pepper, mace, cloves, and sweet herbs.

  4. Cover and stew for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the turkey and keep it warm, covered.

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

  7. Strain the sauce.

  8. Add the egg yolks and butter rolled in flour to the sauce, stirring until thick.

Prepare the loaves and serve

  1. Place the turkey in a dish and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Prepare French loaves by cutting off the tops and removing the crumbs.

  3. Fry the loaves until golden brown.

  4. Fill the loaves with stewed oysters.

  5. Arrange the loaves around the turkey, garnishing 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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Main protein; slow stewing in gravy and wine keeps the meat moist and tender.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour-dusted turkey brown during frying.
Egg yolks
Thicken the strained sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it body.
Flour
Dusts the turkey for browning and, rolled into butter, thickens the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Bacon
Lards the breast, adding fat that keeps the lean meat moist during cooking.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce is too hot or boils after they go in, they can scramble and curdle, so it should be stirred over low heat only until thick.

“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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