Why it works: Turkey and meat work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 540 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Turkey Boned and Forced
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turkey
Remove all bones from the turkey except for the wing bones, without opening the bird.
Shape the turkey.
Fill the turkey completely with fine sausage meat, starting with the legs and wings.
Restore the turkey's original shape.
Tie the turkey securely at both ends and the legs.
Insert a skewer through the ends and body. Insert another skewer through the wings and body.
Lay twine over the back. Pass the twine under the skewer ends. Secure the twine at the neck.
Flour the turkey well.
Roast and make gravy
Place the turkey far from the fire until heated through.
Baste it continuously with batter while roasting.
Roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Break and boil down the bones in 1½ pints of water or veal broth with a little salt, celery slices, and peppercorns for gravy.
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.
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Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together540 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together431 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,905 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turkey + vealtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together393 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Meat + vealtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,890 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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, with its meat and skin carrying the cooking and flavor.
- Fine sausage meat
- Fills the boned bird, adding richness, moisture and savory flavor to the meat around it.
- Flour
- Coats the outside, helping the skin brown and form a crisp surface during roasting.
- Batter for basting
- Coats the surface as it roasts, adding moisture and helping the skin brown.
- Water or veal broth
- Simmered with the bones to extract flavor and body for the gravy.
The step that matters
Place the turkey far from the fire until heated through. Stuffed birds need gentle, indirect heat so the sausage filling cooks through to the center while the outer skin does not scorch or dry out before the interior is done.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, flour, veal):
- Sagefits better
- Thymefits better
- Turmericfits about as well
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, flour, veal. 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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