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Wild Turkey

A turkey stuffed with stale bread, salt pork, salt, pepper, and baked with butter basting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wild Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing stale bread, chopped salt pork, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stuff the body of the turkey with the mixture and truss it.

Roast and baste

  1. Place the turkey in a baking pan and cover the breast with thin slices of fat pork.

  2. Add water to the pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes per pound.

  3. After 1 hour, reduce the oven temperature slightly, add salt to the pan, and baste with melted butter every 10 minutes.

  4. After the initial basting, continue to baste with the turkey's own gravy.

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

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

  2. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the body of the stuffing, soaking up juices and adding texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing and, as slices, to the breast.
Melted butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a golden skin.

The step that matters

Reducing the oven temperature after 1 hour. Roasting at a high heat for the whole time can dry out the meat and over-brown the skin. Lowering the heat after the first hour lets the turkey cook through gently while basting keeps the surface moist and browned.

“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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