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Turkey, Stewed or Braised

A stew of turkey with bacon, butter, onions, carrots, turnip, bouquet garni, peppercorns, salt, oyster sauce, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turkey, Stewed or Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Truss the turkey as for roasting.

Brown and stew

  1. Heat the butter in a stewpan and fry the turkey until browned on all sides, then remove it.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables, bouquet garni, peppercorns, and season with salt.

  3. Pour in enough stock to nearly cover the turkey.

  4. Replace the turkey in the pan, lay the bacon slices on the breast, cover, and cook gently for about 2 hours or until the turkey is tender.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns the turkey surface and adds richness to the stewing liquid.
Bacon
Lays fat over the breast as it cooks, adding savoury flavour and moisture.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and aroma to the liquid.
Carrots
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and body to the liquid.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the turkey until tender.

The step that matters

Cook gently with the lid on. Gentle, covered simmering lets the connective tissue in the turkey break down slowly, keeping the meat tender and moist. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and dries the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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