Name: To Roast Turkey {Pent}
Ingredients: 1 turkey; veal stuffing or sausage meat or bread stuffing; butter; gravy; bread sauce

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 Turkey {Pent}

Ingredients

Directions

Carefully draw the turkey without tearing the liver or letting the gall touch it.
Fill the inside with veal stuffing, sausage meat, or bread stuffing.
Apply heat mainly to the breast and cover with buttered paper.
Baste well and froth it up.
Serve with gravy in the dish and bread sauce in a 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together822 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turkey + vealtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together393 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

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To Roast Turkey {Pent}