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To Roast a Turkey

Roast a turkey stuffed with forcemeat or seasoned sausage meat, butter-basted, served with gravy and bread sauce.

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

  1. Hang the turkey in a cool, airy place for up to two weeks if the weather is very cold.

  2. Wash and dry the turkey thoroughly with clean cloths, pouring water through the inside.

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

  4. Truss the turkey firmly and place it over a clear fire.

  5. Baste constantly and generously with butter.

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

  7. Optionally, garnish with fried sausages.

  8. Cover the breast with buttered writing paper to prevent over-browning, removing it 20 minutes before the turkey is done.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

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

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main cooked meat of the dish.
Butter
Basting adds fat and moisture to the skin, helping it brown.
Forcemeat or sausage meat
Fills the breast, adding moisture and seasoned flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Covering the breast with buttered writing paper. The breast is thick and browns faster than the rest of the bird. A buttered paper cover shields it from over-browning while the inside cooks, and removing it 20 minutes before the end lets the surface colour up again.

“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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