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Roast Turkey or Chicken

Roast turkey or chicken stuffed with a bread and herb dressing, served with a giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the turkey or chicken well in two or three waters and wipe dry.

  2. Dredge the inside and outside with flour, pepper, and salt.

  3. Prepare the dressing by mixing soaked bread, sage, summer savory, salt, pepper, butter, and a little water. Add oysters and their liquor if desired.

  4. Fill the body and crop of the turkey or chicken with the dressing.

Roast

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 to 3 hours, basting frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Stew the giblets in a saucepan.

  2. Chop the giblets finely just before serving.

  3. Add the chopped giblets to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with giblet water.

  5. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  6. Serve the gravy in a dish alongside the roast.

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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 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. Flour + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turkey or chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the meat stays moist inside.
Flour
Dusting the bird helps browning, and flour mixed with giblet water thickens the gravy.
Soaked bread
Soaks up liquid and gives the dressing a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, carrying flavor and keeping it moist.
Sage
Adds a savory, aromatic herb flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Basting during the roast. Frequent basting spreads melted fat and juices over the skin, helping it brown and keeping the surface from drying out over the long bake.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Summer savorythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

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