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Roast Turkey

A whole turkey prepared with a seasoned bread crumb dressing and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Dress and wash the turkey inside and out in 2 or 3 waters.

  2. Season the inside with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Dredge the outside with black pepper, coarse sea salt, and flour.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs well for the dressing.

  2. Combine the bread crumbs with melted butter.

  3. Season the bread crumbs with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a little sage.

  4. Moisten the bread crumbs with a little boiling water.

  5. Fill the body and crop with dressing.

Roast

  1. Baste frequently while roasting.

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. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, cooked through by roasting.
Eggs
Bind the dressing so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and absorbent base that carries the dressing's flavour and moisture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread crumbs, tenderising the dressing.
Flour
Coats the skin to help it brown and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Baste frequently while roasting. Regular basting spreads melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the skin moist and encouraging even browning during a long roast.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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