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Roast Turkey

A method of preparing a turkey with a breadcrumb dressing, bacon, butter paste, and oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Prepare the dressing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sage, ½ cup melted butter, and the egg thoroughly.

  2. Stuff the turkey's body and breast with the dressing and sew it closed with strong thread.

  3. Mix 2 tablespoons of melted butter and 2 tablespoons of flour to form a paste.

  4. Rub the turkey with salt and pepper, then spread the paste over the entire turkey and add a few slices of bacon.

  5. Roll the turkey loosely in clean linen or muslin, tie it up, and place it in the oven.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the turkey every 15 minutes until done, about 2 hours for a young turkey and 3-4 hours for an old one.

  2. Remove the cloth a few moments before taking the turkey out of the oven.

Make the gravy and oyster sauce

  1. Thicken the drippings with 2 tablespoons of browned flour mixed with 1 cup of sweet cream.

  2. For the oyster sauce, place oysters in a stew pan, add ½ cup butter, season with salt and pepper, cover, and bring to a boil.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour 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

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the dressing, giving the stuffing body and soaking up the butter and egg.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together when stuffed and roasted.
Flour
Mixed with butter to form a paste that thickens and helps the skin brown.
Browned flour
Thickens the drippings into gravy while adding a toasted, deeper flavour.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture to the thickened drippings.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, paste, and oyster sauce.

The step that matters

Basting the turkey every 15 minutes. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while the long roast can otherwise dry out the lean meat before the stuffed centre is fully cooked.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, egg, flour, cream, oyster):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, egg, flour, cream, oyster. 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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