Skip to main content
Main

Roast Boned Turkey

Roast boned turkey stuffed with bread, butter, mushrooms, and spices, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Roast Boned Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the bread, butter, mushrooms, pepper, salt, and nutmeg finely.

  2. Stuff the turkey joints where the bones were removed to make it look plump.

  3. Tie the turkey up and place it in a baking pan.

  4. Dust the turkey with flour, pepper, and salt.

Roast

  1. Add water to the pan to prevent burning.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1½ hours, basting with Madeira wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the turkey from the pan and make gravy with the drippings.

  2. Serve with potato croquettes arranged around the dish.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Boned turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Stale bread
Absorbs butter and juices in the stuffing, giving it a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the turkey and stuffing brown and taste rich.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma, and browns the surface when used for basting.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1½ hours, basting with Madeira wine. Low, steady heat cooks the large boned turkey through gently while basting builds colour and flavour on the surface. Because the turkey is boned and stuffed, it can dry out or burn if the heat is too high or the pan runs dry, so the added water helps prevent scorching.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, mushroom, pepper, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, mushroom, pepper, flour, madeira wine. 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.

More roast turkey recipes

or Chicken 17with Oyster Dressing 8with Chestnuts 4with Giblet Sauce 3with Gravy 3with Oysters 3 See all 259 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes