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How to Roast a Turkey

A turkey stuffed with a veal and herb mixture, baked and served with a gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

How to Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Chop the herbs finely.

  2. Pound the veal as small as possible.

  3. Mix the veal, herbs, lemon peel, onion, nutmeg, mace, salt, butter, eggs, and enough flour or bread to achieve a proper consistency.

  4. Fill the crop of the turkey with the mixture.

Roast

  1. Cover the breast with paper.

  2. Place the turkey at a distance from the fire.

  3. When the smoke begins to draw to the fire and the turkey looks plump, baste it again.

  4. Dredge the turkey with flour.

  5. Once cooked, remove the turkey.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Serve the turkey with a sauce made from white gravy, catchup, bread crumbs, and whole pepper boiled together.

  2. Add flour and a lump of butter to the sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the turkey.

  4. Garnish the dish with diced lemon.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Pounded fine, it forms a moist, binding meat base for the stuffing.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and the finished sauce.
Flour or bread
Thickens the stuffing to the proper consistency and absorbs moisture.
White gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that is served over the turkey.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the sauce as it boils together with the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Dredge the turkey with flour. Flour dusted on the surface helps the skin brown and form a crisp, golden coating as it roasts.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, thyme, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, thyme, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, lemon, nutmeg. 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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