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Roast Turkey

Roast Turkey stuffed with a bread, bacon, and herb dressing, baked with butter and flour, served with giblet gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turkey

  1. Select a young gobbler and ensure the breastbone is soft.

  2. Singe, draw, remove the oil bag, wash the turkey in cold water, and dry it.

  3. Rub the inside of the turkey with salt.

Make the stuffing

  1. Soak bread in milk until soft, then press out moisture.

  2. Add an equal amount of cooked hoecake or cornbread to the bread.

  3. Cook onion in butter for 5 minutes without browning.

  4. Add the bread and bacon, cook for 5 more minutes while stirring.

  5. Remove from heat, let cool, then season with salt, pepper, celery seeds, parsley, butter, and raw egg yolks.

  6. Do not overfill the turkey; sew it up and secure the wings and legs with a skewer and string.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Rub the turkey with salt and pepper, place in a roasting pan.

  2. Spread soft butter over the breast and dredge with flour.

  3. Roast in a 350°F oven; when browned, add boiling water and baste.

  4. Dredge with flour after each basting; roast for 15 minutes per pound.

  5. Cook giblets in cold water with salt; add garlic when boiling.

  6. Mix flour with cold water until smooth, then add to the giblet broth.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Young gobbler
Provides the main body of meat, and a young bird with soft breastbone is more tender.
Bread
Soaked and pressed bread forms the moist, bulky base of the stuffing.
Raw egg yolks
Bind the stuffing together and add richness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the breast brown in the oven.
Flour
Dredged on the breast and added to the broth, it helps form a browned crust and thickens the gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water only once the turkey is browned. Adding water too early cools the surface and stops browning, while basting keeps the skin moist and golden. Timing the water to browning helps the bird brown evenly without drying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, celery, parsley, egg, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, celery, parsley, egg, flour. 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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