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Roast Turkey

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 gizzards, liver, heart, and neck in cold water for one hour.

  3. Wash everything thoroughly.

  4. Dry the turkey inside and out.

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

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

  7. Fill the breast with the dressing.

  8. Sew the breast up.

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

  10. Skewer the vent.

  11. Tie the legs tightly.

  12. Skewer the wings to the sides.

  13. 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 with butter again.

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. 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 boiling water.

  4. Add the turkey drippings to the boiling water.

  5. Add a little flour to the boiling water.

  6. Stir continuously until it 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 body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and egg to form a moist, bound dressing that fills the breast.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb dressing so it holds together while roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and basting with it helps the skin brown and stay moist.
Flour
Dredged on the turkey and stirred into the drippings to thicken the liquid.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey to time and baste frequently. Turkey is dense and lean, so the cook must roast it long enough for the thickest parts to be fully cooked. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

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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