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To Roast Turkey

A whole turkey roasted with a dry salt rub and a dry bread-based stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the turkey thoroughly.

  2. Rub the turkey inside and out with coarse sea salt.

  3. Make stuffing by finely crumbling stale or toasted bread.

  4. Add chopped onion, black pepper, salt, celery seed, and enough butter to moisten the mixture.

  5. Do not add any water to the stuffing.

Roast

  1. Place the turkey in a roasting pan with enough water to keep it moist while roasting.

  2. Baste the turkey frequently during cooking.

  3. Roast the turkey for 3 to 4 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 cooks through over a long roast.
Bread
Absorbs butter and juices to form the body of the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture so the stuffing stays soft rather than dry.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the stuffing as it cooks.

The step that matters

Do not add any water to the stuffing.. Stuffing relies on butter and the bird's juices for moisture. Added water would make it soggy and dilute its flavor, while the bread should absorb fat rather than liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, pepper, celery, butter. 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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