Skip to main content
Main

Roast Turkey with Oyster Dressing

A roast turkey stuffed with oyster dressing made from bread, butter, oysters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Turkey with Oyster Dressing

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 turkey

  1. Dress and rub the turkey inside and out with salt and pepper.

  2. Steam for 2 hours until tender, lifting the cover occasionally and sprinkling lightly with salt.

  3. Loosen the legs, rub the inside again with salt and pepper, and prepare the stuffing.

Make the stuffing

  1. Soften the bread by pouring boiling water over it, draining immediately, and covering closely.

  2. Crumble the bread fine, add melted butter, salt, and pepper to season.

  3. Drain the oysters, bring the liquor to a boil, skim, and pour over the bread crumbs.

  4. Add the soaked crusts and 1-2 eggs, mixing thoroughly; moisten with sweet milk if dry.

  5. Carefully add the oysters without breaking them, or alternate stuffing and oysters in the turkey.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the breast first, then cover openings with a floured cloth tied down with twine.

  2. Spread the turkey with butter, salt, and pepper, place in a dripping pan, and add hot water.

  3. Roast in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours, basting often with water, butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Turn until browned on all sides, and about 30 minutes before done, baste with butter and dredge with flour.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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, cooking through while the outside browns and stays moist.
Oysters
Add briny, savory flavor and a tender, moist texture to the stuffing.
Stale bread
Soaks up liquid and butter, giving the dressing a soft, absorbent structure.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown during roasting.

The step that matters

Stuff the breast first, then cover openings with a floured cloth tied down with twine.. Stuffing packed loosely or unevenly can cook unevenly, and sealing the openings helps hold the stuffing and moisture in while the bird roasts.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes