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Suet Stuffing

A suet-based stuffing for turkey made with stale bread, eggs, wine, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme 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 ↓

Suet Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove all membrane from the suet and chop it very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped suet with the stale bread, raw eggs, wine, marjoram, thyme, salt, and pepper.

  3. Use this mixture to stuff a turkey.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Wine + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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

Suet
Adds fat that melts during roasting, keeping the stuffing moist and rich.
Stale bread
Provides the body of the stuffing and soaks up the wine and fat.
Raw eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when spooned in.
Wine
Adds moisture and a light acidity that balances the rich suet.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Marjoramthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, wine, thyme, 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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