Skip to main content
Main

Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudree

A seasoned turkey stuffed with sausage and bread crumbs, then boiled and served cold with a lemon‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Poudree

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.

  4. Turn the turkey every day for four days.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the turkey with equal parts sausage meat and bread crumbs soaked in boiling milk or cream, wrung dry.

  2. Season the filling with grated lemon rind, nutmeg, cayenne, and fine herbs.

  3. Sew the turkey securely, truss it, and roll it in a cloth, tying it at both ends.

  4. Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, sprinkle the turkey with fine bread crumbs mixed with chopped parsley.

  2. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, grated lemon rind, mustard, pounded sugar, and oil to taste.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, cooked whole and served cold.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the outside of the bird, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat.
Sausage meat
Adds richness and fat to the filling, keeping the stuffing moist during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk or cream, they bind the filling and add moisture and body.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the cold sauce and balances the rich meat.
Mustard
Adds sharpness to the sauce, balancing the sweetness and richness of the dish.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours. A gentle simmer cooks the large bird and filling through evenly while keeping the meat tender. A hard boil can toughen the proteins and break the bird apart.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipes