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Turkey Poult, to Roast

A roasted turkey poult served with bacon, watercress, brown gravy, and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and bread work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 822 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Turkey Poult, to Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Truss the turkey poult with the head tucked under the wing and the legs twisted under.

  3. Place the turkey poult on a roasting rack and baste it liberally with bacon fat.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast until fully cooked, about 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve garnished with watercress, alongside brown gravy and 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. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Watercress + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Watercress + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Turkey + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey poult
Provides the main meat, which cooks through in the oven to become tender and safe to eat.
Bacon fat
Coats the bird, adding moisture and fat that promote browning and flavor on the skin.

The step that matters

Roast until fully cooked. Poultry must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. Judging by time alone can leave the thickest parts undercooked, so checking the internal temperature at the thigh and breast is the reliable way to confirm doneness.

“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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