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To Boil a Turkey

A whole turkey is boiled after being stuffed with crackers and seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Boil a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the turkey as you would for roasting.

  2. Fill the turkey with whole crackers to maintain its shape.

  3. Rub a little coarse sea salt inside the turkey for seasoning.

  4. Sew the turkey in a cloth that is well dredged with flour.

Boil and serve

  1. Ensure the water is boiling before placing the turkey in it.

  2. Make sure there is enough water to cover the turkey.

  3. Check for doneness by piercing with a fork or knitting needle.

  4. Serve with drawn butter or oyster sauce.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Dredging the cloth forms a coating that keeps the turkey's skin from sticking to the cloth.
Whole crackers
Fill the cavity to help the turkey hold its shape during boiling.

The step that matters

Ensure the water is boiling before placing the turkey in it. Adding the turkey to water that is not yet at a full boil slows the return to boiling and cooks the bird unevenly, so start with vigorously boiling water covering the bird.

“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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