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Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde POUDr£e

A stuffed turkey seasoned with sausage, breadcrumbs, lemon, spices, and served cold with a lemon‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 POUDr£e

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Wipe the inside of the turkey 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; turn it every day for 4 days.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the turkey with equal parts sausage meat and bread crumbs soaked in boiling milk or cream, seasoned with lemon rind, nutmeg, mace, cayenne, and fine herbs.

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

  3. Boil the turkey gently in water for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, sprinkle with fine bread crumbs mixed with shredded parsley.

  2. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, lemon rind, mustard, pounded sugar, and oil to taste; mix until well combined.

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  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; long gentle boiling makes the meat tender and cooked through.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the outside of the bird, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat over four days.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury richness to the stuffing, keeping the filling moist during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk or cream to form a moist, tender stuffing that holds its shape.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma through the rind and juice, balancing the rich meat.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the sauce, cutting through the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Boil the turkey gently. Boiling at a vigorous rolling boil can toughen the meat and burst the trussed bird. A gentle simmer cooks the stuffed turkey evenly and keeps its texture tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

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