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Plain Roast Turkey

A whole turkey roasted with butter, flour, and water, basted with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the bird

  1. Pluck the turkey.

  2. Singe off the down with lit paper.

  3. Break the leg bone close to the foot.

  4. Hang the bird.

  5. Draw out the strings from the thigh without cutting the breast.

  6. Make a small slit down the back of the neck to remove the crop.

  7. Cut the neck bone close.

  8. Stuff the bird.

  9. Sew the skin of the neck over the back.

  10. Fasten the skin with a skewer.

  11. Sew up the vent opening.

  12. Skewer the pinions and thighs together.

Roast

  1. Dredge the turkey with flour.

  2. Cover the breast with buttered paper.

  3. Place the turkey on a grate in a drip pan.

  4. Roast in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  5. Baste every 15 minutes with butter and water.

  6. Baste with gravy from the pan.

  7. Roast for about 3 hours.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and butter 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
Is the main cooked meat, providing the bulk of the dish.
Flour
Coats the skin, helping it brown and form a crisp surface during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and keeping the basting liquid flavorful.
Stuffing
Fills the cavity, absorbing juices and adding flavor and moisture to the meat.

The step that matters

Basting and roasting time. Basting every 15 minutes with butter, water and pan gravy keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly. Roasting for about 3 hours at a moderate oven heat lets the thick meat cook through; cutting that time short can leave the bird undercooked near the bone.

“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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