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Baked Turkey

A whole turkey stuffed with a seasoned breadcrumb mixture, baked with butter and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and summer savory work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the turkey

  1. Rinse the turkey inside and out in cold water, changing the water three or four times.

  2. In the last rinse, dissolve 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in water, fill the turkey's body with this water, shake well, pour off, and rinse with fresh water.

  3. Wipe the turkey dry inside and out, then rub the inside with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Make and stuff the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix enough grated bread crumbs to fill the turkey's body with ½ teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon of your choice of herbs.

  2. Add enough butter, drippings, stock, or lard to moisten the mixture and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stuff the turkey with the prepared dressing, tie the neck tightly, sew up the incision, and tie down the wings and legs.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the turkey on its back in a baking pan, wet the skin, season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, and dredge with flour.

  2. Dot the top with small pieces of butter and add 1 pint of boiling stock or ¼ pound of butter to the pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned, basting every 10 minutes. If it browns too quickly, cover with a sheet of white paper.

  4. When the breast is browned, turn the turkey over in the pan and season the back with salt, pepper, and flour, continuing to bake and baste.

  5. Once fully cooked, remove the strings and serve with gravy made from the gizzard, liver, and heart, which should be cleaned, minced, and stewed gently in water until tender.

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 + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 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. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Bread + summer savorytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 provides the meat that cooks through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the moistening fat and stock, giving the stuffing body and texture.
Butter
Adds fat that moistens the dressing and helps the skin brown as it roasts.
Stock
Adds moisture to the dressing and to the pan, keeping the bird from drying out.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged over the skin to help it brown and crisp during roasting.

The step that matters

Basting and watching the browning. Basting every 10 minutes keeps the skin moist and evenly coloured, while covering it if it darkens too quickly stops the outside from burning before the inside cooks through.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, bread, butter. 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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