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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a seasoned fat mixture and chestnuts, served with Perigueux sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Cut the fat lard or bacon into small pieces and pound with the seasonings and garlic.

  2. Simmer the mixture in a saucepan over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then stuff the turkey, ensuring the crop is full.

  4. Use a trussing needle and twine to secure the crop and close the turkey.

Rest and truss

  1. Place the turkey on an earthen dish and refrigerate overnight if time allows.

  2. Truss the turkey for roasting the next day, covering the breast with thin layers of bacon.

Roast and serve

  1. Wrap the turkey in buttered thick paper and secure it to the spit with string.

  2. Roast the turkey, being careful not to tear the crop when removing it from the spit.

  3. Serve with a rich Perigueux sauce and garnish with quenelles of fowl and truffles if desired.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  4. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Fat lard or bacon
Melts during roasting to keep the meat moist and adds rich flavour to the bird.
Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, with the stuffing filling its cavity.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and perfumes the fat used in the stuffing.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mildly sweet, earthy flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Cooling the fat mixture before stuffing. If the simmered fat is still very hot, it can partly melt and loosen the bird's flesh and make the stuffing greasy and loose. Letting it cool slightly keeps it firm enough to hold its shape inside the cavity.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver, veal):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, nutmeg, thyme, clove, liver, veal. 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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