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Roast Turkey

Roast turkey prepared by dressing, twisting wings, stuffing, securing legs, and roasting as for roast duck, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bird

  1. Dress the turkey as directed for Chicken Carry.

  2. Twist the tips of the wings back under the shoulders.

  3. Stuff the bird with forcemeat as directed.

  4. Bend the legs up toward the breast and secure the thigh bones with a cord or skewer.

  5. Fasten the legs down close to the vent.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the bird as directed for Roast Duck.

  2. Make the gravy as for that dish.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Turkey + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
The main meat, roasted whole as the centrepiece of the dish.
Bread
Forms the body of the forcemeat stuffing, adding bulk and soaking up juices.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when cooked.

The step that matters

Bend the legs and secure the thigh bones. Tying the legs close to the body keeps the bird compact, so it roasts more evenly and holds its shape while cooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, cheese, bread, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, cheese, bread, egg. 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.

More roasted turkey recipes

with Stuffing 7Poult 5with Chestnuts 4with Oysters 3 See all 122 →

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