Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
To Boil a Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turkey
Select a plump hen turkey and pick and draw it carefully, avoiding the gall bladder.
Singe the turkey with writing paper, remove the head and neck, and draw off the legs by pulling them away from a strong hook.
Wash the turkey thoroughly and wipe it dry.
Fill the breast with your choice of forcemeat.
Truss the turkey by drawing the legs into the body and breaking the breastbone for a round appearance.
Boil and serve
Place the turkey in plenty of warm water and carefully remove any scum that rises to the surface.
Boil gently for 1.5 to 2.25 hours, depending on the size of the turkey.
Serve with oyster sauce, celery sauce, or white sauce, and optionally accompany with boiled tongue, small ham, or cheek of bacon.
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.
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Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,810 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together360 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together431 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
- Hen turkey
- Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender through gentle boiling.
- Forcemeat
- Stuffs the breast, adding moisture and richness as the bird cooks.
The step that matters
Boil gently and skim the scum. Boiling gently keeps the meat tender and prevents it from toughening and breaking apart, while skimming removes the scum that rises so the broth and meat stay clean.
Swap the celery
The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter):
- Capersfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Celerythe original
- Sagefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter. 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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