Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the turkey
Prepare the turkey by picking, singeing, drawing, washing, wiping, and trussing it.
Season the inside of the turkey with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Stuff the turkey with your preferred dressing.
Sew up the opening of the turkey with strong thread.
Place the turkey in a baking pan with butter.
Roast the turkey
Roast the turkey in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C), basting frequently.
Roast for at least 5 hours until the turkey is brown, tender, and juicy.
Make the gravy
Boil the giblets and neck in water until tender.
Mash the liver and chop the gizzard finely.
Pour off the drippings from the baking pan and add the giblet cooking water.
Rub the glaze from the bottom of the pan.
Bring the glaze to a boil.
Add the prepared giblets to the boiling glaze.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour.
Season the gravy with pepper and salt.
Serve
Serve the turkey in a gravy tureen.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,636 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat becomes tender and juicy during long roasting.
- Butter
- Adds fat that helps the skin brown and keeps the surface from drying out.
- Browned flour
- Thickens the drippings into gravy as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
- Giblets and neck from the turkey
- Simmered in water to make a flavourful stock that enriches the gravy.
The step that matters
Basting frequently during roasting. Spooning the drippings over the bird keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly over the long roast, so the meat does not dry out before it is cooked through.
“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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