Why it works: Turkey and bread work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 822 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Roast Turkey or Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Wash the fowl well in two or three waters and wipe dry.
Dredge the inside and outside with flour, pepper, and salt.
Prepare a dressing of bread and cracker crumbs and fill the bodies and crops of the fowl.
Bake
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 3 hours, basting frequently.
Stew the giblets in a saucepan.
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.
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Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together822 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,636 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together963 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms a light coating on the skin that helps it brown and crisp in the oven.
- Bread crumbs
- Make up the dressing that fills the cavity, absorbing juices and adding body and moisture.
- Cracker crumbs
- Add to the dressing, helping it bind and giving it a firmer texture.
The step that matters
Basting frequently during the long bake. Regular basting moistens the skin and spreads rendered fat over it, which promotes even browning and reduces drying of the lean meat over a 2 to 3 hour roast.
“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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