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Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudr&E

A boiled turkey stuffed with sausage and breadcrumbs, coated in breadcrumbs, served cold with a lemon mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudr&E

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Prepare the turkey by wiping the inside with a dry cloth; do not wash it.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt inside to draw out the blood; let it sit for a couple of hours, then drain and wipe again.

  3. Rub the outside of the turkey with ½ cup coarse sea salt mixed with 1 tablespoon pounded sugar; turn it every day for four days.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the turkey with equal parts sausage meat and bread crumbs soaked in boiling milk or cream, seasoned with grated lemon rind, nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and fine herbs.

  2. Sew the turkey securely, roll it in a cloth, tie it at both ends, and boil gently in water for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Once cooked, coat the turkey with fine bread crumbs mixed with chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, grated lemon rind, mustard, pounded sugar, and enough oil to balance the acidity; mix well.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Hen turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, holding the stuffing while it cooks.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury richness that keeps the stuffing moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk or cream, they absorb liquid and keep the stuffing tender and moist.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the cold sauce and balances the oil.
Oil
Adds fat to the sauce, softening the sharpness of the lemon juice and mustard.

The step that matters

Boiling the stuffed turkey gently. Boiling at a vigorous rolling boil can toughen the meat and break up the stuffing. A gentle simmer cooks the turkey through while keeping its texture tender and the filling intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, sugar, meat, bread, lemon, nutmeg, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, sugar, meat, bread, lemon, nutmeg, parsley. 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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