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To Roll a Turkey

A rolled turkey stuffed with forcemeat and bacon, stewed in bouillon with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Roll a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Bone the turkey and cut it in half down the breast.

  2. Lay the pieces flat with the skin side down and spread turkey forcemeat inside each piece.

  3. Roll up each piece neatly and tie it, covering with thin slices of bacon.

Stew

  1. Place the rolls in a stewpan and cover with bouillon.

  2. Add parsley, thyme, garlic, carrot, parsnip, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stew gently for 1 hour, skimming off the fat.

  4. Add white wine and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the rolls, cut away the thread, and skim and strain the sauce.

  2. Thicken the sauce with roux and serve over the meat.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Thyme + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main meat, which is rolled around the forcemeat and becomes tender during stewing.
Turkey forcemeat
Fills the rolls, adding moisture and a soft, rich texture to the sliced meat.
Bacon
Wraps the rolls, basting the lean turkey with fat and adding savoury flavour as it cooks.
Roux
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stew gently and skim the fat. Gentle heat keeps the turkey tender instead of tough, and skimming removes fat that would make the sauce greasy and cloudy.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, parsley, thyme, clove, carrot, parsnip, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, parsley, thyme, clove, carrot, parsnip, pepper. 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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