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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with bread crumbs, salt pork, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Do not wash the turkey; instead, draw and wipe it with a dry towel.

  2. If the turkey is tough, steam it for 1-2 hours before roasting.

  3. Moisten the stale bread with scalding water.

  4. Add butter, salt, pepper, and herbs to the bread.

Stuff and truss

  1. Stuff the turkey and sew it closed, securing the wings and legs with skewers or string.

  2. Place the turkey in a roasting pan.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Roast the turkey for 2.5 to 3 hours, starting slowly.

  3. Baste occasionally with seasoned water and butter.

  4. Bake until uniformly light brown, avoiding burning.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish; long slow roasting cooks the meat through while keeping it moist.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and butter in the stuffing, giving it a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and promotes even browning on the skin.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing as it renders during roasting.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.

The step that matters

Roasting at a low, slow start. Cooking at 300°F for a long time heats the bird gently, so the meat cooks through without drying out or burning before the skin turns evenly brown.

Swap the marjoram

The recipe marks marjoram as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, pork, sage, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, pork, sage, pepper, egg, butter. 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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