Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
Roast Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turkey
Loosen the skin on the turkey's breast and fill it with forcemeat made from suet, bread crumbs, lemon peel, anchovy, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, thyme, and egg yolk. If you don't have suet, use butter instead.
Stuff the breast and roast the turkey until golden brown, covering it with white paper until nearly done.
Prepare good gravy to serve with the turkey.
Make the sauces
For bread sauce, boil bread crumbs in 1 pint of water with mace, cloves, and whole pepper for 5-6 times. Remove the spices and pour off the water. Beat the bread with butter and a little salt.
For onion sauce, peel and slice onions. Boil the onions in milk and water for 30 minutes. Drain the onions and beat them with butter, flour, and cream or milk.
For oyster sauce, strain the liquor from ½ pint of oysters. Combine the liquor with mace in a saucepan. Add oysters and white wine to the saucepan. Boil briefly and thicken as desired.
Serve
Serve the sauce in boats and garnish with lemon.
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.
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Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,973 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turkey (in the method)
- The main dish, whose breast is stuffed and roasted until golden brown.
- Suet
- Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing from drying out.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb liquid and bind the forcemeat, and thicken the bread sauce.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the forcemeat ingredients together as it sets when cooked.
- Oysters
- Give the oyster sauce its briny flavour and tender texture.
The step that matters
Covering the turkey with white paper. Covering the bird until nearly done shields the surface from direct heat, so it finishes cooking without over-browning before the inside is ready.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, lemon, anchovy, pepper, parsley, thyme):
- Marjoramfits better
- Winter savoryfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, lemon, anchovy, pepper, parsley, thyme. 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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