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To Roast a Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, suet, herbs, and optional ham, served with a gravy made from its giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 957 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix grated bread crumbs, minced suet, sweet marjoram, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, and a beaten egg yolk to make a force-meat; optionally add grated cold ham.

  2. Singe the turkey's skin by lighting some wadding paper and removing any hairs.

  3. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard for the gravy. Stuff the turkey's breast with the force-meat.

Roast

  1. Dredge the turkey with flour and roast it over a clear, brisk fire, basting with cold lard.

  2. Towards the end of roasting, move the turkey closer to the fire, dredge lightly with flour, and baste with butter.

  3. Roast for 2 to 3 hours, depending on the size of the turkey.

Make the gravy

  1. Cut the giblets into pieces, season, and stew in a little water for 2 hours. Thicken with browned flour and stir in the drippings from the pan after skimming off the fat.

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. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Bind the force-meat and give it a soft, absorbent body.
Minced suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Beaten egg yolk
Binds the force-meat so it holds together when cooked.
Flour
Dredged over the skin to help it brown and crisp during roasting.
Cold lard
Fat for basting that helps the skin brown and stay moist.
Butter
Added late in roasting to enrich browning and flavour the skin.

The step that matters

Moving the turkey closer to the fire near the end. Flour and butter are applied late so the skin browns and crisps without burning or drying out before the bird is cooked through.

“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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