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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a breadcrumb dressing, served with a gravy made from its giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, minced onion, pepper, salt, sweet marjoram, and enough butter to bind the crumbs together.

  3. Rub the inside of the turkey with pepper and salt, then fill it with the dressing.

  4. Season the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper, truss it firmly, and dredge it with flour.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Place the turkey on a spit and roast it, basting with butter while cooking.

  2. Clean the giblets and boil them in a small amount of water with some salt.

  3. Once the turkey is done, pour the giblet broth into the gravy from the turkey.

  4. Chop the liver and add it to the gravy with some butter rolled in flour to thicken, and season with more pepper and salt.

Serve

  1. Serve the turkey hot with the gravy in a small tureen.

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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, cooking to tender meat as it roasts.
Bread crumbs
Bind with butter to form the dressing, absorbing juices and giving the stuffing body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and browns the skin as it bastes the roasting bird.
Flour
Dusted on the turkey and mixed with butter to thicken the gravy.
Giblets
Simmered to make a broth that gives the gravy its savory base.

The step that matters

Roasting and basting the turkey. A stuffed bird can be undercooked at the center while the outside over-browns. Checking doneness in the thickest parts and basting keeps the meat moist and the skin golden.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, pepper, marjoram, 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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