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Wild Turkey

A turkey stuffed with a mixture of stale bread, salt pork, salt, and pepper, baked with water and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wild Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing stale bread, chopped salt pork, salt, and pepper together.

  2. Stuff the body of the turkey.

  3. Truss the turkey.

  4. Place the turkey in a baking pan.

Roast

  1. Cover the breast with thin slices of fat pork.

  2. Add water to the pan.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes per pound.

  4. After one hour, reduce the oven temperature slightly.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the pan.

Baste and finish

  1. Baste with melted butter every 10 minutes initially, then with its own gravy.

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

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

  2. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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 fat and juices as it bakes.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the stuffing and bird moist as it renders.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown as it is spooned over the bird.

The step that matters

Baste with melted butter every 10 minutes initially, then with its own gravy. Regular basting spreads fat and juices over the surface, which helps the skin brown evenly and stay moist. The pan drippings become gravy that adds flavour. Letting the surface dry out during roasting makes the skin tough and pale.

“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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