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Roast Turkey

A whole turkey prepared with a bread crumb and herb dressing, basted, roasted, and served with 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 from the turkey.

  2. Draw the innards from the turkey, ensuring everything is removed.

  3. Soak the gizzards, liver, heart, and neck in cold water for one hour, if possible.

  4. Wash everything thoroughly.

  5. Dry the turkey inside and out.

Stuff and truss

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, salt, sweet marjoram, butter, and egg to make the dressing.

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

  3. Fill the breast with the dressing.

  4. Sew the breast closed.

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

  6. Skewer the vent.

  7. Tie the legs tightly.

  8. Skewer the wings to the sides.

  9. Turn the neck back with a strong skewer.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the turkey with salt and water once.

  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 one last time.

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

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the gizzard, neck, and liver in a saucepan with water, pepper, salt, and mace until reduced to half a pint.

  2. Finely chop the liver.

  3. Return the chopped liver to the saucepan.

  4. Add the turkey drippings and a little flour.

  5. Stir continuously until it boils.

  6. 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, cooked whole so the meat stays moist inside the skin.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and egg in the dressing, giving it body and a soft, moist stuffing texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the skin as it is basted over the roasting bird.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb dressing so it holds together when spooned into the breast.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, aromatic herb flavour to the dressing.
Flour
Dredged onto the skin and thickens the drippings into gravy.

The step that matters

Basting and the final dredge. Basting with fat and salt water keeps the skin from drying and helps it brown, while the late flour dredge gives a crisp coating. Adding too much salt or flour too early can make the skin pasty or overly salty.

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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