Why it works: Turkey and bread work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 822 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Roast Turkey or Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Pick and draw the fowl, then wash it well in two or three waters.
Wipe the fowl dry and dredge it inside and out with flour, pepper, and salt.
Prepare a dressing using bread and cracker crumbs, and fill the body and crop of the fowl.
Roast and make the gravy
Bake the fowl at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 3 hours, basting frequently.
Stew the giblets in a saucepan.
Just before serving, chop the giblets finely.
After removing the fowl, add the chopped giblets to the gravy, thickening with a little flour mixed with water.
Boil the gravy and serve in a gravy dish.
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.
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Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together822 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,636 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together963 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turkey or chicken
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole by roasting.
- Flour
- Dries the skin lightly and thickens the gravy when mixed with water.
- Bread crumbs
- Form the body of the dressing that is stuffed into the fowl.
- Cracker crumbs
- Add to the dressing's body, filling the cavity with a crumb mixture.
- Giblets
- Simmered and chopped into the gravy to add savory flavor.
The step that matters
Baking the fowl at 350°F for 2 to 3 hours with frequent basting. Cooking long enough at moderate heat lets the thick meat reach a safe, fully cooked temperature, while basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.
“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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