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Boiled Turkey

A turkey stuffed with veal stuffing, ham, bread crumbs, herbs, suet, butter, anchovy, egg, and spices, boiled and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare the veal stuffing by mixing chopped ham, bread crumbs, sweet herbs, beef suet, butter, anchovy, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the turkey's crop and sew it up.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the turkey in a well-floured cloth and place it in cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. After 30 minutes, remove the turkey from the heat and let it sit in the water for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with oyster sauce or a thick caper sauce.

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

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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 and is cooked through by gentle boiling.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when sliced or served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing a soft, bulky texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam as the water comes to a boil. Foam is coagulated protein and impurities that cloud the cooking liquid and can cling to the bird. Removing it keeps the water clear and the turkey clean-tasting.

“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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