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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a breadcrumb and onion mixture, served with a gravy made from giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dressing

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, minced onion, pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet marjoram, and softened butter until combined.

Prepare and cook the turkey

  1. Rub the inside of the turkey with pepper and salt, then fill it with the dressing.

  2. Season the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper, truss it firmly, and dredge with flour.

  3. Place the turkey on a spit before the fire and baste with butter while cooking.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Clean the giblets and boil them in a small amount of water with some salt.

  2. Once the turkey is done, pour the giblet cooking liquid into the gravy.

  3. Chop the liver and add it to the gravy with additional butter rolled in flour to thicken, along with more pepper and salt.

  4. Serve the turkey hot with the gravy in a small tureen.

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 + marjoramtop 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 centerpiece, with its meat cooking through in the oven or over the fire.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and juices, giving the dressing a soft, moist body inside the bird.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown as it bastes the bird.
Flour
Dredges the turkey and thickens the gravy made with butter and giblet liquid.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the bread dressing.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with butter rolled in flour. Flour must be cooked into the fat and liquid, or the gravy stays pasty or lumpy. Whisking the flour-butter paste into simmering liquid lets starch swell evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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