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To Boil Turkey

A whole turkey is stuffed, boiled, and served with a rich oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

To Boil Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Remove the strings or sinews from the turkey thighs.

  2. Make a stuffing with bread, herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, lemon peel, oysters or anchovy, butter, suet, and egg.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the turkey's crop and fasten the skin.

Boil and serve

  1. In a clean pot, add enough water to cover the turkey and bring it to a boil.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Boil a small turkey for 1.5 hours and a large one for 2 hours or more.

  4. Prepare a rich oyster sauce with butter, cream, and soy sauce, and pour it over the turkey before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in water until tender.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together during boiling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich.
Oysters or anchovy
Contributes savory, briny flavor to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to both the stuffing and the oyster sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and skim the scum. Scum that rises during heating can cloud the cooking liquid and carry impurities. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting while the turkey cooks.

“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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