Skip to main content
Main

A Turkey in Jelly

A whole turkey set in a gelatinous stock made from veal, spices, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Turkey in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Boil the turkey until cooked, then let it cool.

Make the jelly

  1. In a well-tinned saucepan, combine veal and water.

  2. Heat over a clear fire until it simmers, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add mace, nutmeg, white peppercorns, and lemon peel.

  4. Simmer for 6-7 hours, skimming off fat as needed.

  5. Add salt and squeeze in the juice of the orange or lemon 15 minutes before finishing.

  6. Test the jelly's stiffness by cooling a small amount.

  7. Strain the jelly through a clean sieve, avoiding sediment.

Serve

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

  2. Let it cool completely before serving, garnishing with nasturtium flowers 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the jelly body and a rich, savoury flavour.
Turkey
Forms the centrepiece that is set in and coated by the cooled jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the jelly and balances the rich meat flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming during the simmer. Foam and fat rising during simmering can cloud the jelly and spoil its clarity and taste. Removing them early and as needed keeps the finished jelly clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, veal, nutmeg, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, veal, nutmeg, lemon, orange. 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipes