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To Roast Geese, Turkeys, &C

A method for roasting geese, turkeys, and other fowl by singeing, basting with butter, and dusting with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Roast Geese, Turkeys, &C

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Singe the bird with a piece of white paper.

  2. Baste the bird with butter.

  3. Dust the bird lightly with flour.

  4. When the smoke begins to rise and the bird looks plump, baste again.

  5. Dust the bird with flour once more.

  6. Remove the bird from the heat.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and staying moist as it cooks.
Flour
Dusted on the bird, it helps form a crisp, browned crust on the skin.

The step that matters

Baste again when the smoke begins to rise. The timing signals the bird is nearly cooked and the fat is hot enough to brown the skin. Basting too early or too late can leave the skin pale or the fat smoking heavily and burning.

“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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