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Wild Turkey

Roasted wild turkey served with currant or cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Wild Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the wild turkey as you would a domestic turkey.

  2. Use twice the amount of fat or butter for basting.

  3. Stew the turkey covered at first.

  4. Sprinkle thickly with salted flour.

  5. Add flakes of butter all over the turkey.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast until brown, basting often.

  2. Serve with currant or cranberry jelly.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Turkey + curranttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Wild turkey
Forms the main dish; its lean meat stays moist when cooked covered and basted.
Fat or butter
Used for basting, it adds richness and helps the surface brown.
Salted flour
Forms a coating that helps the skin brown and thickens the pan juices.
Butter flakes
Melt over the bird, adding fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour.
Currant or cranberry jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, savoury meat.

The step that matters

Roast until brown, basting often. Basting spreads melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the skin from drying out. The fat and heat also drive browning reactions that give the bird its colour and flavour.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour. 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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