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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey prepared with a bread crumb dressing, basting, and a gravy made from its gizzard, neck, and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Remove the gills and clean the turkey thoroughly, ensuring all innards are removed.

  2. Soak the gizzards, liver, heart, and neck in cold water for one hour.

  3. Make the dressing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, marjoram, butter, and egg together.

  4. Cut the skin at the back of the neck to plump the breast.

  5. Fill the breast cavity with the dressing.

  6. Sew the skin closed.

  7. If there's extra dressing, place it inside the body.

  8. Skewer the vent.

  9. Tie the legs tightly.

  10. Skewer the wings to the sides.

  11. Turn the neck onto the back with a strong skewer.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the turkey with salt and water once.

  2. Frequently baste the turkey with butter.

  3. Fifteen minutes before serving, dredge the turkey with salt and flour.

  4. Baste the turkey with butter again.

  5. Roast the turkey for 12 minutes per pound; a 10-pound turkey requires about 2 hours.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, boil the gizzard, neck, and liver in a quart of water with pepper, salt, and mace until reduced to half a pint.

  2. Finely chop the liver and return it to the broth.

  3. Add turkey drippings and a little flour to the broth.

  4. Stir constantly until it boils.

  5. Serve the gizzard with the turkey.

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. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main meat, whose skin and dense flesh are protected and moistened by basting during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and butter in the dressing, giving it a soft, moist texture inside the bird.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together rather than falling apart when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and rich flavour on the roasted skin.
Flour
Thickens the drippings and broth into gravy as it heats and boils.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the gravy boils. Flour added to hot liquid clumps easily if not stirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly as it comes to a boil.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, egg, flour, liver, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, egg, flour, liver, 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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