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Roast Turkey

A whole turkey stuffed with a bread crumb, butter, and herb dressing, roasted and served with a gravy made from its own drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Remove the gills and innards from the turkey, ensuring everything is taken out.

  2. Soak the turkey and the gizzards, liver, heart, and neck in cold water for one hour.

  3. Wash everything thoroughly and dry the turkey inside and out.

  4. Mix the bread crumbs, salt, marjoram, butter, and egg to make the dressing.

  5. Cut the skin at the back of the neck to plump the breast.

  6. Fill the breast with the dressing.

  7. Sew the breast up.

  8. If there's extra dressing, place it inside the body.

  9. Skewer the vent.

  10. Tie the legs tightly.

  11. Skewer the wings to the sides.

  12. Turn the neck onto the back with a strong skewer.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the turkey once with salt and water.

  2. Baste the turkey frequently with butter.

  3. Fifteen minutes before serving, dredge the turkey with salt and flour.

  4. Baste the turkey again with butter.

  5. Roast the turkey for 12 minutes per pound; a 10-pound turkey takes about 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. To make the gravy, boil the gizzard, neck, and liver in a quart of water with pepper, salt, and mace until reduced to half a pint.

  2. Finely chop the liver.

  3. Return the chopped liver to the broth.

  4. Add the turkey drippings to the broth.

  5. Add a little flour to the broth.

  6. Stir constantly until the gravy boils.

  7. Serve the gizzard with the 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Marjoram + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together767 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main roasted dish; its skin browns and its meat cooks through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter in the dressing, giving it body and a soft texture.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together when stuffed and cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the skin when basted over the roast.
Flour
Thickens the broth into gravy and helps the dredged skin brown.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, floral aroma to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the gravy boils. Flour added to hot broth clumps easily if left unstirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch so the gravy thickens smoothly as it comes to a boil.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, marjoram, butter, egg, flour, 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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