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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with bread crumbs, oysters, and herbs, basted with butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

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

  1. Clean the turkey thoroughly.

  2. Prepare the stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, pepper, summer savory, marjoram, thyme, melted butter, and oysters.

  3. Stuff the turkey's breast and body with the mixture.

  4. Truss the turkey by securing the legs and wings with skewers and string across the back.

  5. Dredge the turkey with salt.

  6. Rub the turkey with soft butter.

  7. Dredge the turkey with flour.

  8. Dredge the bottom of the roasting pan with flour.

  9. Place a meat rack inside the pan.

  10. Lay the turkey on its side on the rack.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until the flour is brown.

  2. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.

  3. Brown one side of the turkey.

  4. Turn the turkey to brown the other side.

  5. Place the turkey on its back.

  6. Baste every 15 minutes with pan juices.

  7. Renew the water as needed.

  8. Dredge the turkey with salt, pepper, and flour.

  9. For the last basting, use soft butter.

  10. Roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes for an 8-pound turkey, adding 10 minutes for each additional pound.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, boil the liver until cooked.

  2. Add 1 cup of water to the roasting pan.

  3. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan.

  4. Let it boil.

  5. If not thick enough, mix flour with cold water.

  6. Stir the mixture into the pan.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Summer savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

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

  3. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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, cooking through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices in the stuffing, giving it a moist, soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and richness on the skin.
Oysters
Add savory, briny flavor to the stuffing.
Flour
Browns on the surface of the turkey and thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Roast and baste the turkey at intervals. Basting with pan juices keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly. Turkey is lean, so without regular basting the meat can dry out before the thickest parts are cooked through.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Summer savorythe original
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

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