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Turkey with Truffles

A roasted turkey stuffed with light forcemeat and truffles, flavored with lemon, salt, bacon, and truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and truffle work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Turkey with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Truss the turkey as for boiling.

  2. Stuff the cavity near the breast with light forcemeat mixed with pounded truffles. Secure the forcemeat to prevent it from falling out.

  3. Place slices of lemon, coarse sea salt, and pieces of fat bacon on the breast. Cover with white paper and bind it on with packthread.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast gently in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one and a half hours.

  2. When serving, remove the paper, glaze the breast, and pour truffle sauce around the turkey.

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. Turkey + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Turkey + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Truffle + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 carries the stuffing and flavourings during roasting.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma that carries through the forcemeat and into the sauce.
Light forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and a tender texture as it cooks inside the bird.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly over the breast, basting the meat and adding fat for moisture.

The step that matters

Roast gently. Low, steady heat cooks the turkey through without drying the breast, and the paper cover shields the surface from over-browning before serving.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, truffle):

  1. Red currantfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, truffle. 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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