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Roast Turkey

Roast Turkey is a whole turkey prepared with salt, pepper, optional aromatics, stuffed, and roasted, served with gravy and optional oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Remove the vent and cut a slit in the breast bone to take out the entrails, avoiding the gall on the liver.

  2. Take off the feet.

  3. Bruise the bone near the foot.

  4. Draw out the string from the leg.

  5. Cut a slit in the back of the neck.

  6. Draw out the crop.

  7. Cut the neck short, leaving enough skin to fasten over the back.

  8. Wash the inside with cold water.

  9. Wipe the inside dry.

  10. Mix salt and pepper. Rub the inside of the turkey and the crop area with the mixture.

Stuff and truss

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing bread, salt, pepper, butter, cinnamon or nutmeg, lemon peel, parsley, thyme, and beaten eggs.

  2. Stuff the body and breast of the turkey.

  3. Sew the body and breast closed with strong thread.

  4. Fill the crop.

  5. Draw the neck skin over the back.

  6. Fasten the neck skin with a skewer.

  7. Tie the legs together.

  8. Run skewers through each hip joint.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the turkey until golden brown, basting frequently with the pan juices.

  2. Mix drawn butter with the drippings to make gravy.

  3. Boil oysters in a pan. Thicken the oyster liquid with butter rolled in flour. Let the oyster sauce boil once.

  4. Serve the turkey on its back, with gravy and optional oyster sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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.
Eggs
Bind the bread stuffing so it holds together after baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and gravy, and helps browning on the roast.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Bread
Makes up the body of the stuffing, absorbing the seasonings and juices.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey until golden brown, basting frequently with the pan juices. Basting moistens the surface and helps it brown evenly, while the bird must be cooked through so the thickest parts are safe to eat and not dry.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper, bread, butter, lemon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, bread, butter, lemon, parsley, thyme. 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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