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Roast Turkey

Roast Turkey with a bread and onion stuffing, seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Dress the turkey and season the inside with salt and pepper.

  2. Rub the stale bread finely.

  3. Cook the chopped onion in butter without browning.

  4. Mix the bread with the cooked onion, salt, pepper, sage, and enough melted butter to bind the mixture.

  5. Stuff the turkey.

  6. Tie the wings and thighs to secure the stuffing.

Roast

  1. Season the outside with salt and pepper.

  2. Place 2 cups of water in the dripping pan with the turkey.

  3. Lay fat pork on top or rub with lard.

  4. Cover the turkey with a damp cloth after it begins to brown.

  5. Baste frequently.

  6. Cook for 20 minutes per pound.

  7. Keep an even fire and turn occasionally.

Finish the gravy

  1. Chop the giblets finely after cooking.

  2. Add them to the gravy thickened with flour.

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

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

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

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

  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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, and its fat and juices baste the meat as it roasts.
Stale baker's bread
Absorbs moisture and holds the stuffing together in a soft, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and binds the stuffing while softening the cooked onion.
Fat pork or lard
Adds fat to the outside of the bird, helping it brown and stay moist.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into gravy.

The step that matters

Cover the turkey after it begins to brown. Covering at the right moment slows surface browning so the thick bird can cook through without the outside darkening too far or drying out. Covering too early traps steam and keeps the skin pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, bread, butter, sage, pork, flour. 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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