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Roast Turkey

Roast Turkey with optional chestnut stuffing and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Stuff the turkey with bread crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and melted butter; mix well.

  2. Rub the turkey with butter and dredge with flour and a little salt.

Roast and baste

  1. Place the turkey in a 400°F (200°C) oven; once browned, reduce the heat.

  2. Add hot water and butter to the pan, and baste every few minutes, dredging with flour often.

Make the optional chestnut stuffing and gravy

  1. For chestnut stuffing, pour boiling water over chestnuts to soften shells, then remove shells and skins.

  2. Boil chestnuts in salted water until tender, mash them, and mix with cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, and melted butter.

  3. For gravy, remove fat from the baking pan, add boiling water, and stir in flour mixed with butter, seasoning with salt and pepper.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 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.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the seasoned butter and stuff the cavity, adding moisture and body to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and promotes browning on the skin during roasting and basting.
Flour
Dredged over the turkey to help form a browned crust and thicken the gravy.
Chestnuts
Add a soft, starchy texture to the optional chestnut stuffing.

The step that matters

Reducing the oven heat after browning. Starting hot browns the skin, but continued high heat can dry the meat and scorch the flour coating before the bird is cooked through, so lowering the heat keeps the turkey moist.

“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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