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To Roast Turkey

A whole turkey stuffed with bread crumbs, beef suet, parsley, spices, and optional sausage, then roasted and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Pick the turkey.

  2. Draw the turkey.

  3. Singe the turkey well.

  4. Press down the breastbone.

  5. Truss the turkey as directed for fowls.

Stuff and close

  1. Stuff the breast with bread crumbs, minced beef suet or marrow, minced parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Wet the stuffing with milk and egg.

  3. Add sausage meat if desired.

  4. Sew up the neck opening.

  5. Cover the breast with buttered writing paper to prevent scorching.

Roast and serve

  1. Remove the paper shortly before finishing to brown the breast.

  2. Baste well with butter.

  3. Roast the turkey for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  4. Serve with gravy sauce and bread sauce.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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 is the centerpiece of the roast.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and egg to bind the stuffing and keep it moist.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape while roasting.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the stuffing stays tender rather than dry.
Minced beef suet or marrow
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and keeps it moist during roasting.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the skin.

The step that matters

Covering the breast with buttered paper. The paper shields the breast from direct heat so it does not scorch early. Removing it shortly before the end lets the surface brown. Timing the removal matters: too early and the breast may dry, too late and it will not brown.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, beef, nutmeg, pepper, milk, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, beef, nutmeg, pepper, milk, egg. 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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