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Turkey & LA Bechamel

A turkey dish simmered in a béchamel sauce with herbs, cream, and lemon, served over noodles, rice, or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Turkey & LA Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the turkey into small pieces.

  2. Crack the bones and place them in a saucepan.

  3. Cover with boiling water and add the onion.

  4. Boil for 1 hour, then strain the broth through a napkin.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour, stirring for a few minutes.

  2. Add 1½ cups of turkey broth, salt, peppercorns, and the bouquet of herbs.

  3. If available, add the mushroom liquor.

  4. Cook for 6 minutes, then strain the sauce into a clean saucepan.

  5. Add the cream or milk and nutmeg.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the fine-cut turkey meat and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice.

  3. Serve on a hot dish with noodles, rice timbales, croutons, or over toast.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds body and softness, giving the sauce its creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.
Turkey broth
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter. Stirring the flour into melted butter and cooking it briefly coats the starch granules in fat, so they disperse smoothly rather than clumping when liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, flour, mushroom, cream, nutmeg, meat):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, mushroom, cream, nutmeg, meat. 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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