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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with chestnut and pork mixture, basted with butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

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 the turkey

  1. Dress, clean, stuff, and truss the turkey.

  2. Spread the turkey with thick sour cream.

  3. Refrigerate overnight.

  4. Place the turkey on a rack in a dripping pan.

  5. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  6. Dredge with flour.

  7. Lay thin strips of fat bacon over the breast.

Roast and baste

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for two and a half hours.

  2. Baste every fifteen minutes with melted butter mixed with boiling water.

  3. After the butter mixture is used, baste with the fat in the pan.

  4. Turn the turkey frequently for even browning.

  5. Remove the bacon after the first hour of cooking.

Make the chestnut stuffing

  1. Cook the shelled chestnuts in boiling salted water until soft.

  2. Force through a purée strainer.

  3. Mix the chestnut purée with the chopped pork.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, and pounded bay leaf.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Chestnut + thymetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Flour + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main structure and lean meat of the dish.
Sour cream
Adds acidity and moisture that helps keep the skin tender and promotes browning.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and flavor the roast.
Fat bacon
Bastes the breast with fat, keeping the lean meat moist and adding savory flavor.
French chestnuts
Provide starchy body and mild sweetness to the stuffing once puréed.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat and savory richness to the chestnut stuffing.

The step that matters

Turning and basting the turkey. Frequent basting with fat and turning the bird help the surface brown evenly while the lean meat stays moist. Removing the bacon after the first hour lets the breast skin crisp and brown.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, cream, flour, butter, pork, chestnut, pepper):

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, cream, flour, butter, pork, chestnut, 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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