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To Roast Turkey

A method for roasting a turkey with a breadcrumb dressing and optional oysters, salt pork, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

To Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dressing

  1. Prepare the turkey as directed.

  2. Make a dressing with fine bread crumbs, season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and sage or sweet herbs.

  3. Moisten the dressing with melted butter and a little water.

Stuff and roast

  1. Season the inside of the turkey with salt and fill it with the dressing; sew it up with white woolen yarn.

  2. Tie the legs and wings close to the body, place in a dripping pan, and rub with salt and butter or lay on slices of salt pork.

  3. Pour in 1 cup of water and roast slowly at 350°F (175°C), basting frequently.

  4. If desired, mix oysters into the dressing, omitting the herbs, and moisten with oyster liquor instead of water.

  5. Cook for 3 to 4 hours, depending on the size of the turkey.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For gravy, boil the heart, liver, and gizzard until tender, chop finely, and return to the boiling water.

  2. Add oysters and their liquor, thicken with butter rubbed in flour, and season to taste; boil until cooked, then serve.

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

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

  3. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Turkey + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pork + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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 roast, and its size sets the cooking time.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and liquid to form a moist, tender stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown as it roasts.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Oysters
Add a briny flavour to the optional dressing and gravy.

The step that matters

Roast slowly and baste frequently. Slow roasting at 350°F lets the thick meat cook through without drying the outside. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, pepper, butter, pork, oyster, liver):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, pepper, butter, pork, oyster, liver. 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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