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English Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with buttered breadcrumbs and herbs, served with a gravy made from the pan juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the turkey several days before cooking.

  2. Stuff the turkey with bread crumbs moistened with butter and beaten eggs, and season with salt, pepper, and herbs.

  3. Sew up the turkey, skewer it, and place it on a rack in a roasting pan.

Roast and baste

  1. Spread bits of butter on the turkey and baste frequently with a mixture of butter, pepper, salt, and water.

  2. A few minutes before it's done, glaze the turkey with beaten egg white.

  3. Once cooked, remove the turkey and pour off most of the fat.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add chopped giblets and the water they were boiled in to the pan.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, stir, and let it boil thoroughly.

  3. Serve the gravy in a gravy boat and garnish the turkey with fried oysters.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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 and carries the stuffing and roasting juices.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and egg, giving the stuffing body and moisture as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing, moistens the meat, and helps the skin brown.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together when sliced and served.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy when cooked with fat.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in fat and boiled thoroughly so its starch swells fully and the gravy thickens smoothly without a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, egg, pepper, sage, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

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