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Turkey Dressing

A bread-based dressing with butter, onion, apples, raisins, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Turkey Dressing

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkey Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Soak the dried bread in cold water.

  2. Drain the water and press the bread to remove excess moisture.

Cook the dressing

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and add the chopped onion.

  2. Cook the onion on the stove until browned.

  3. Add the soaked bread, chopped apples, raisins, parsley, salt, and pepper to the pan. Mix well and cook until heated through.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried bread
Forms the body of the dressing and soaks up the butter and moisture from the pan.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the onion brown in the pan.
Onion
Adds savory depth as it browns and sweetens in the butter.
Apples
Add moisture and a mild sweetness that balances the savory bread and onion.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the dressing.

The step that matters

Press the bread after soaking. Excess water left in the bread would make the dressing soggy and keep it from browning and holding its texture once heated with the other ingredients.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, onion, apple, parsley, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, onion, apple, parsley, pepper. 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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