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A whole bird stuffed with oyster forcemeat or other filling, boiled until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Remove the skin from the bird by cutting around the first joint of the legs and pulling it off.

  2. Wash the bird thoroughly and dry it.

  3. Fill the breast with oyster forcemeat or another filling of your choice.

  4. Truss the bird by drawing the legs into the body and securing it.

Poach the bird

  1. Place the bird in a pot with enough warm water to cover it by an inch.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Cook the bird for 10 minutes.

  4. Cool the water by adding cold water.

  5. Remove some water to keep the bird covered.

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

  7. Simmer the bird gently for 1.5 to 2.25 hours, depending on size.

Serve

  1. Serve with oyster sauce, celery sauce, or white sauce, along with optional sides.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bird (chicken or turkey)
Provides the main body of meat that is cooked gently until tender.
Oyster forcemeat
Fills the breast, adding moisture and flavour to the lean meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer the bird gently. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the meat tender and prevents it from toughening or falling apart. Skimming scum keeps the liquid clean.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, oyster, sauce, ham, parsley, butter. 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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