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Roast Turkey

A turkey stuffed with bread and seasonings, roasted and served with a gravy made from liver, gizzard, and optional currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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. Wash the inside and outside of the turkey.

  2. Soak enough bread in cold water to fill the turkey.

  3. Mix the soaked bread with melted butter, salt, pepper, sage, nutmeg or mace, thyme or marjoram, and 1 egg.

  4. Fill the crop and body of the turkey with the dressing, sew up, and tie the legs and wings.

  5. Rub the turkey with butter and a little salt, then dredge with flour.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Place 2/3 pint of water in the dripping pan.

  2. Roast the turkey at 300°F (150°C) for 2 to 4 hours, basting frequently.

  3. Boil the liver and gizzard, mince finely, thicken the gravy with a little flour, and add currant jelly if desired.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by slow roasting.
Bread
Soaked and mixed into the dressing, it absorbs moisture and gives the stuffing a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the skin brown and the dressing taste savoury.
Egg
Binds the soaked bread dressing so it holds together when cooked.
Flour
Dredged over the skin and used to thicken the gravy.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during roasting. Lean poultry dries out easily over long roasting. Regular basting with the pan juices keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, pepper, sage, thyme, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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