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Turkey in Jelly, or with Gravy

A whole turkey stuffed with sausage and truffles, stewed with herbs and then browned, served with reduced sauce or set in jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turkey in Jelly, or with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and stew

  1. Stuff the boned turkey with sausage meat and truffles.

  2. Place the turkey in a stewpan and cover it with slices of fat bacon.

  3. Add a carrot, onion, cloves, sweet herbs, and mace.

  4. Moisten with good stock and let it stew until cooked through.

Brown and serve hot

  1. Remove the bacon and place the turkey in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes to brown.

  2. Serve hot with reduced sauce and forcemeat balls or stewed Portugal onions.

Make the cold dish

  1. For a cold dish, place the cooled turkey in a mold with stiff jelly, ensuring the jelly is thick on the breast.

  2. Carefully turn out the turkey from the mold and garnish with green curled parsley.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 provides the meat that is cooked through and browned.
Sausage meat
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing inside the turkey.
Truffles
Adds a strong earthy aroma to the stuffing.
Fat bacon
Bastes the turkey with fat as it stews, keeping the meat moist.
Stock
Moistens the turkey during stewing and forms the base of the liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Browning in the oven after stewing. The turkey is already cooked through, so the short oven stage only needs to colour the surface. Removing the bacon first lets the skin brown directly, while too long at high heat would dry the lean breast meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, truffle, carrot, onion, clove, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, truffle, carrot, onion, clove, white wine. 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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