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Roast Turkey

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean the turkey and rub the inside with an onion or rinse it with water mixed with baking soda, then wash with cold water.

  2. Crush the point of the breastbone with a rolling pin for a round appearance.

  3. Truss the turkey like a chicken and stuff it with bread crumbs seasoned with pepper, salt, herbs, and butter.

  4. Place the turkey in a roasting pan, dot with lard or drippings, and add 3 cups of water to the pan.

  5. Baste the turkey often. When the breast is brown, cover it with a piece of paper.

  6. Boil the giblets, chop them finely, and add to the gravy made in the roasting pan after removing the turkey.

  7. If there's too much fat, pour it off before adding giblets; if too little gravy, add water.

  8. Thicken and season the gravy to taste, pour some around the turkey, and serve the rest in a boat.

  9. Optionally, curl fried sausage or ham slices around the turkey and serve with stewed cranberries or apples.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

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

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, onion, pepper, butter, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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