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Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a mixture of crackers or bread crumbs, butter, sage or summer savory, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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.

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

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

  3. In a bowl, mix the pounded crackers or stale bread crumbs with butter, sage or summer savory, and the egg.

  4. Fill the turkey with the dressing mixture.

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

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

  2. Turkey + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

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

  3. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 slowly so the meat becomes tender.
Pounded crackers or stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the dressing a soft, bulky structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the dressing taste moist and savory.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together when filled into the bird.
Sage or summer savory
Adds herbal aroma that flavors the dressing.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey slowly. A low oven temperature gives heat time to reach the thick meat and the stuffing in the cavity without the outer meat drying out or overcooking.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, 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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