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A turkey roasted with a stuffing of butter, grated bread, lemon peel, parsley, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turkeys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Truss the turkey properly.

  2. Work the stuffing well together and fill the turkey's cavity.

Roast

  1. Prepare a brisk fire and cover the turkey's breast with paper when placing it down to roast.

  2. Continue roasting until nearly done, then remove the paper, dredge the turkey with flour, and baste it until fully cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve the turkey with gravy, brown celery, or mushroom sauce.

  2. For a turkey poult, serve with 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter or suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist and tender as it cooks.
Grated bread
Forms the bulk of the stuffing and absorbs the fat and liquid around it.
Eggs (yolks)
Bind the stuffing together and help it hold its shape when cooked.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the stuffing.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged over the turkey to help it brown and form a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Cover the breast with paper while roasting. The breast cooks faster and dries out before the dark meat is done. Paper shields it from direct heat, and removing it later lets the skin brown.

“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.

More roasted turkey recipes

with Stuffing 7Poult 5with Chestnuts 4with Oysters 3 See all 122 →

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