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To Roast a Turkey

A method for roasting a turkey with forcemeat stuffing, butter basting, and optional garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Hang the turkey in a cool, airy place for up to two weeks if needed.

  2. Pluck, draw, and singe the turkey carefully.

  3. Wash and dry the turkey thoroughly with clean cloths.

  4. Fill the breast with forcemeat or highly seasoned sausage meat.

  5. Truss the turkey firmly.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the trussed turkey over a clear fire.

  2. Baste constantly with butter while roasting.

  3. Cover the breast with buttered paper for the first part of roasting.

  4. Remove the buttered paper 20 minutes before done.

  5. Serve with good brown gravy and well-made bread sauce.

  6. Optionally garnish with fried sausages.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

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

  5. Bread + chestnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Forcemeat or sausage meat
Seasoned filling that adds savoury flavour and moisture to the inside of the bird.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the skin.
Turkey
Main meat, whose lean flesh becomes tender and juicy when roasted carefully.

The step that matters

Covering the breast with buttered paper. Covering the breast shields the lean white meat from direct heat, slowing its drying while the thicker parts cook through. Removing the paper 20 minutes before done lets the skin brown.

Swap the chestnut

The recipe marks chestnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, meat, butter, bread, sauce):

  1. Chestnutthe original
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Beansfits less well
  4. Peasfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, meat, butter, bread, sauce. 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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