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Roast Turkey with Oyster Stuffing

Roast turkey stuffed with oysters, bread, celery, lemon, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kaufman, Nettie M · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Turkey with Oyster Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Crumble stale bread until fine, season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add oysters, setting oyster liquor aside.

  3. Cut lemon peel into small pieces and squeeze juice.

  4. Cut celery finely and add butter.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stir until thoroughly mixed, then stuff turkey.

  2. Baste frequently.

  3. Use oyster liquor for basting, placing the liquor in a pan in the oven.

  4. Add chopped giblets and liver to the stuffing.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

479Calories
14 gProtein
2 gFat
102 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Kaufman, Nettie M. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 bulk of the stuffing and soaks up moisture and flavour.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, savoury aroma to the stuffing.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the rich turkey and stuffing.

The step that matters

Stuff turkey after mixing thoroughly. A dense stuffing packed into the cavity insulates the centre and slows heating. The stuffing must reach a safe temperature, so the bird often needs longer roasting. Loosely packed stuffing cooks more evenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, bread, 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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