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Boiling Poultry

A boiled turkey stuffed with a mixture of grated bread, oysters, lemon peel, spices, butter, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiling Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Pluck the turkey.

  2. Draw the turkey out of its cavity.

  3. Cut off the legs.

  4. Tie the thighs into the body.

  5. Remove the head and neck.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the grated bread, chopped oysters, lemon peel, salt, pepper, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and cream into a light stuffing.

  2. Stuff the turkey with part of the mixture.

  3. Form the remaining mixture into balls.

  4. Sew up the turkey.

  5. Dredge the turkey with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the turkey in a kettle of cold water.

  2. Cover the kettle and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises.

  4. Boil the turkey slowly for 30 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and let it sit covered to finish cooking.

  6. Pour oyster sauce over the turkey.

  7. Arrange the force‑meat balls around it.

  8. Serve with additional sauce in a boat.

  9. Garnish with barberries and lemon.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing together and help it set lightly when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing.
Grated bread
Gives the stuffing body and soaks up moisture from the oysters and cream.
Oysters
Provide the savoury, briny flavour at the heart of the stuffing and sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the stuffing and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the turkey slowly for 30 minutes. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and break up the stuffing, so keep the water at a gentle simmer while the turkey cooks through.

“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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