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Roast Poultry

A whole turkey roasted with butter, salt, pepper, flour, and optional salt pork or butter drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Roast Poultry

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Singe the turkey and remove pin feathers, oil bag, crop, entrails, legs, and tendons.

  2. Wash and wipe the turkey, then stuff it and sew, tie, or skewer it into shape.

  3. Place the turkey on a rack in a dripping pan, breast side up.

Season and roast

  1. Rub the turkey all over with softened butter and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and flour, adding a little water.

  2. If desired, place a small piece of salt pork on top or add 1 large tablespoon of butter or drippings.

  3. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Baste with fat every 15 minutes and turn the turkey to brown evenly on all sides.

  5. Roast for 3 hours, covering the breast and legs with brown paper if the turkey is very large to prevent burning.

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. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  5. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 as a whole bird in dry oven heat.
Softened butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the skin brown evenly.
Flour
Helps the seasoned surface brown and thickens the pan drippings.
Salt pork or drippings
Optional fat that adds moisture and savory flavor to the roasting bird.

The step that matters

Basting and turning the turkey. Regular basting with fat keeps the surface moist while it cooks, and turning the bird lets all sides brown evenly. Skipping it can leave the skin dry, pale, or unevenly colored.

“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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