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To Stew a Turkey Brown

A stew of a whole turkey with stuffing, anchovy, herbs, and a reduced gravy, served with fried French loaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Stew a Turkey Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Fill the breast cavity of the turkey with force meat (stuffing).

  2. Stuff the belly with anchovy, shallot, and thyme.

  3. Lard the breast with bacon.

  4. Melt butter in a stew pan, dust the turkey with flour, and fry until golden brown.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Transfer the turkey to a deep stew pan or pot that fits it snugly.

  2. Add enough gravy to barely cover the turkey, along with white wine, whole pepper, mace, cloves, and sweet herbs.

  3. Cover tightly and stew for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the turkey and keep it warm, covered by the fire.

  5. Boil the sauce until reduced to about 1 pint, then strain it.

  6. Add egg yolks and butter rolled in flour to the sauce, stirring until thick.

Serve

  1. Place the turkey on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Prepare French loaves by cutting off the tops and removing the crumbs, then fry until golden brown.

  3. Fill the loaves with stewed oysters and arrange them around the dish, garnishing with 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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Thyme + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,503 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Turkey + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main body of the dish, which becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Butter
Browns the flour-dusted turkey and enriches the sauce, adding richness and a smooth body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the strained sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, velvety texture.
Gravy
Forms the cooking liquid that keeps the turkey moist and flavors the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the stewing liquid, balancing the rich sauce.
Bacon
Lardons add fat that bastes the lean turkey meat, keeping it moist and flavorful.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce boils after they go in, they can curdle and turn grainy. Stir constantly over gentle heat until it just thickens.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, anchovy, shallot, butter, flour, white wine):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, anchovy, shallot, butter, flour, white wine. 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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