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Directions for Roasting and Boiling Poultry, Game, &C

A recipe for roasting a turkey with a sausage and ham stuffing, then boiling it for stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Directions for Roasting and Boiling Poultry, Game, &C

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pull out the sinews from the turkey's legs before trussing.

  3. Prepare the stuffing by mixing sausage meat, bread crumbs, finely shredded ham, beef suet, nutmeg, mace, lemon peel, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Bind with egg yolks.

  4. Stuff the turkey with the mixture and ensure it is well cooked.

Roast

  1. Cover the turkey's breastbone with clean parchment paper to prevent drying.

  2. Baste the turkey well and do not remove the paper until it is more than half done.

Boil for stock

  1. For boiling, simmer the turkey in water with herbs, salt, onions, and a small amount of vinegar. Use the boiling liquid for stock.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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, cooked by roasting and also simmered for stock.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing so it holds together during cooking.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body.
Beef suet
Adds fat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.

The step that matters

Covering the breastbone with paper. Lean breast meat dries out quickly in dry oven heat. A paper cover shields it, and keeping it on until the bird is more than half done helps it stay moist while the thicker parts cook through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, egg, meat, bread, ham, beef. 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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