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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey prepared with butter, salt, pepper, water, and giblets, basted and served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Wash the turkey inside and out with cold water and dry it with a clean napkin.

  2. Rub the inside of the turkey with ½ tablespoon of fresh butter and a pinch of salt and pepper.

  3. Stuff the turkey, sew it up, and sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the outside.

  4. Place small pieces of butter on the outside of the turkey.

Roast

  1. Put the turkey in a roasting pan with ½ cup of water and 1 tablespoon of fresh butter.

  2. Roast the turkey for 1.5 hours, basting it often.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the giblets until soft, then cut them up and mash the liver.

  2. After removing the turkey, skim off some fat from the gravy.

  3. Stir in ½ tablespoon of browned flour.

  4. Add the giblets with the cooking water to the gravy.

  5. Season the gravy with salt and pepper to taste, then cook the gravy for a few minutes.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main bulk of meat that cooks through during roasting.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown as it melts.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Giblets
Add concentrated meaty flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the turkey often while it roasts. Spooning pan juices over the bird keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while the interior cooks through gradually.

“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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