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Turkey Stewed with Celery

A stew of a whole turkey, stuffed and boiled, then simmered with celery and finished with a butter‑flour‑cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Turkey Stewed with Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Stuff the turkey with a mixture of bread crumbs, lemon rind, minced herbs, salt, pepper, butter, and egg yolk.

  2. Skewer the turkey for boiling.

  3. Place the skewer-topped turkey in a large saucepan filled with water.

  4. Boil until tender.

  5. Remove the turkey from the saucepan.

  6. Keep it warm in another saucepan with some of the boiling water.

Cook the celery

  1. Wash the celery.

  2. Add the celery to the saucepan with the turkey water.

  3. Stew the celery until tender.

  4. Remove the celery.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Place the turkey breast down in the saucepan.

  2. Stew for 15 minutes.

  3. Place the turkey on a hot dish.

  4. Thicken the sauce with butter and flour.

  5. Add cream to the sauce.

  6. Warm the sauce in the celery.

  7. Pour the sauce over the turkey before serving.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy when gently boiled and stewed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and egg yolk inside the bird, keeping the stuffing moist and tender.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together and sets slightly when cooked.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor and tender texture to the dish.
Cream
Enriches the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky body.
Butter
Thickens the sauce with flour and adds richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid long enough to swell and thicken smoothly; adding it raw or too quickly causes lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, lemon, pepper, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, lemon, pepper, butter, egg, flour. 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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