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Stuffing for Turkey

A bread crumb stuffing seasoned with sage, celery, onions, and broth, baked or cooked inside a turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. In a gallon crock, combine bread crumbs, sage, salt, pepper, celery, and onions.

  2. Mix the broth with cold water and add the beaten egg.

  3. Pour enough of the mixture over the crumbs to moisten as desired.

  4. Optionally, add oysters to the stuffing.

Cook with the turkey

  1. After the turkey has cooked for 1 hour, replace the broth with boiling water.

  2. Stuff the turkey or bake the stuffing in a separate pan.

Make the gravy and finish

  1. Blend cream and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture into the roaster.

  3. Let it boil.

  4. Pour 1 cup of the boiling gravy over the dressing.

  5. Let it boil before serving.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sage + turkeytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that soak up the liquid and hold the dressing together.
Egg
Binds the crumbs and liquid so the dressing holds its shape when baked.
Turkey broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor that soften the crumbs throughout.
Cream
Enriches the gravy, adding richness and a smoother, silkier texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream into gravy by gelatinizing with heat as it boils.
Celery and onions
Add aromatic flavor and moisture as they soften in the stuffing.

The step that matters

Let the gravy boil. Flour only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, so stopping early leaves the gravy thin and possibly tasting of raw starch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, pepper, celery, turkey, egg, cream):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, pepper, celery, turkey, egg, cream. 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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