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Koast Tukket

A roasted turkey stuffed with a bread, onion, butter, and sage mixture.

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 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,388 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

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

  2. Soak the stale bread in water and crumble it finely.

  3. In a frying pan, cook the chopped onion in butter for a few minutes without browning.

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

  5. If using oysters, chop them and add to the stuffing.

Roast the turkey

  1. Stuff the turkey with the mixture and tie the wings and thighs to secure it.

  2. Season the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper.

  3. Place 1½ cups of water in the dripping pan with the turkey.

  4. Top the turkey with pieces of fat pork or rub it with lard.

  5. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for three hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After roasting, chop the giblets finely and add to the gravy thickened with flour.

  2. Serve with cranberry sauce and your choice of vegetables.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  3. Turkey + porktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together828 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + sagetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together154 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,199 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 long roasting cooks the meat through.
Stale baker's bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the stuffing its body when soaked and crumbled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps bind the stuffing together.
White onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma when softened gently in butter.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it combines with the pan juices.

The step that matters

Cook the onion without browning. Softening the onion gently in butter keeps it sweet and mild. Browning it would add bitterness and a harsher flavour to the stuffing.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, pepper, sage, pork, flour):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, pepper, sage, pork, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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