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Turkey or Fowl

A stew of turkey or fowl simmered in gravy with celery, spices, onion, thyme, and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkey or Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the turkey or fowl in a stew pan with gravy and chopped celery.

  2. Add the muslin rag with spices, onion, and thyme.

  3. Cook until done, then remove the fowl.

  4. Thicken the cooking liquid with butter and flour.

  5. Serve the fowl on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  2. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour thicken the sauce smoothly.
Turkey or fowl
Provides the main cooked meat that is served with the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the cooking liquid with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the fat and liquid so starch granules swell evenly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, celery, pepper, allspice, onion, thyme, butter):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, celery, pepper, allspice, onion, thyme, butter. 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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