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For Roasting Turkey

A roasted turkey prepared with butter, salt, pepper, suet, and a savory stuffing of bread, onion, celery, sage, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

For Roasting Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Prepare the turkey the night before by cleaning and washing it. Let it stand in cold water for 1 hour, then drain and place in a cool place overnight.

  2. In the morning, season with salt and pepper.

  3. Rub 2 tablespoons of butter all over the turkey.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the turkey.

  5. Cut 1 pound of suet into strips and lay it over the top of the turkey.

Roast and make the stuffing

  1. Place the turkey in a roaster and roast for 3 hours or until tender.

  2. Heat 1 cup of butter in a frying pan until dark brown.

  3. Cut bread into pieces and fry until brown.

  4. Add the chopped onion, celery, salt, pepper, sage, and enough water to make stuffing.

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

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 long roasting turns the meat tender.
Suet
Lies over the bird, melting slowly to baste the meat and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour on the skin and in the stuffing.
Bread
Fried until brown, it forms the body of the stuffing and absorbs the flavoured fat.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the stuffing as it softens.

The step that matters

Heat the butter until dark brown. Butter browns through the milk solids toasting, giving nutty flavour; if it burns, it turns bitter and dark specks spoil the stuffing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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