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Roast Turkey

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the turkey and fill it with stuffing, then sew it up.

  2. Tie or skewer the wings to the sides and tie down the legs.

  3. Rub the turkey with butter and place it on a rack in a dripping pan.

  4. Pour a little water into the pan, then sprinkle the turkey with pepper and salt, and dredge it with flour.

  5. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in 1 cup of boiling water and baste the turkey frequently.

  6. Sprinkle the turkey again with pepper and salt, and dredge it with flour 15 minutes before removing it from the oven.

  7. Remove the skewers and strings, serve on a hot platter with the gizzard, and garnish with parsley.

  8. Serve with cranberry sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turkey + cranberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together97 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + cranberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + cranberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the cranberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, pepper, flour, parsley, sauce):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Cranberrythe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, pepper, flour, parsley, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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