Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Boiled Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Fill the turkey with oyster stuffing and tie the legs and wings close to the body.
Roll the turkey in a cloth dipped in flour.
Boil
Place the turkey breast down in salted boiling water.
Skim the surface and boil for about 2 hours, ensuring the skin does not break.
Boil a piece of salt pork.
Serve
Serve with oyster or celery sauce.
Serve a thin slice on each plate, or substitute with bacon or ham.
Save the broth for soup by adding seasonings and rice, barley, or macaroni.
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.
-
Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together830 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
-
Oyster + porktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,255 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
-
Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together360 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together473 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turkey
- Forms the main cooked dish; boiling cooks it through while keeping the meat moist.
- Oyster stuffing
- Flavors the bird from inside and adds moisture as it cooks.
- Salt pork
- Adds savory fat and seasoning to the boiling water and meat.
The step that matters
Keep the skin intact while boiling. Skimming the surface keeps foam and fat from clouding the broth, and a gentle boil keeps the skin from splitting, which would let the meat dry out and lose juices.
“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.
More boiled turkey recipes
You might also like
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Turkey Soup71 recipes
Turkey Stuffing26 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.