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To Roast a Turkey

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and chestnut work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 136 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Hang the turkey in a cool, airy place for up to two weeks if weather permits.

  2. Wash and dry the turkey thoroughly with clean cloths.

  3. Fill the breast with forcemeat or seasoned sausage meat.

  4. Truss the turkey firmly and place it over a clear fire.

  5. Baste constantly with butter while roasting.

  6. Serve with brown gravy and bread sauce.

  7. Optionally, garnish with fried sausages around the turkey.

  8. Cover the breast with buttered paper for the first part of cooking, removing it 20 minutes before done.

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. Turkey + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + chestnuttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the chestnut

The recipe marks chestnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, butter):

  1. Chestnutthe original
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More roasted turkey recipes

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