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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey seasoned with butter, salt, flour, and sage, stuffed with a pork and beef mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the turkey by breaking the leg bones close to the knee and pulling the tendons from the thigh.

  2. Pour melted butter over the turkey and dredge with salt and flour.

  3. Stuff the turkey.

Roast

  1. Place the turkey in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) and baste frequently, allowing 15 minutes per pound.

  2. When the legs begin to cleave from the body, remove the turkey from the oven.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Coats the skin, adding moisture and helping it brown in the oven.
Flour
Dredged over the buttered skin, it helps form a coating that browns and crisps.

The step that matters

Removing the turkey when the legs begin to cleave. Leg movement is a rough doneness sign. Dark meat near the bone cooks more slowly than the breast, so pulling the bird too early leaves it underdone, while waiting too long dries the breast meat and can overcook the skin.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, flour, pork, beef, biscuit, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, pork, beef, biscuit, pepper. 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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