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Turkey a LA Flamande, Or, Dinde Poudree

A boiled turkey seasoned with salt, sugar, sausage, breadcrumbs, lemon, spices, and served cold with a mustard-lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 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 4 ounces of fine dry salt mixed with 1 tablespoon of pounded sugar; turn it every day for 4 days.

Stuff and boil

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

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

  3. Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

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

  2. Serve cold with a sauce made from lemon juice, lemon rind, mustard, pounded sugar, and oil, mixed until smooth.

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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing and seasoning.
Sausage meat and bread crumbs
Add moisture and richness to the stuffing, keeping the interior from drying out.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the multi-day cure.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the cold sauce and balances the richness of the meat.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and emulsifying body to the cold sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours. A gentle simmer cooks the large bird through without toughening the proteins; a hard boil can make the meat tough and break up the rolled shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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