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Turkey, Roast

A roasted turkey stuffed with sausage and veal forcemeat, basted with fat, 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: 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, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare and truss the turkey.

  2. Fill the crop with sausage meat and place the veal forcemeat inside the body.

  3. Skewer the bacon over the breast.

Roast

  1. Baste well with hot fat.

  2. Roast in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ to 2 hours, depending on the size of the bird.

  3. Baste frequently.

  4. About 20 minutes before serving, remove the bacon to allow the breast to brown.

Serve

  1. Remove the trussing strings, serve on a hot dish, and serve the gravy and bread sauce in sauceboats.

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

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

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

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

  4. Turkey + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main mass of the dish, and its meat is the centerpiece that cooks through in the oven.
Sausage meat
Adds savory flavor and moisture to the bird's cavity as it cooks.
Veal forcemeat
Adds a tender, moist stuffing that absorbs juices from the roasting bird.
Bacon
Fat from the slices bastes the breast, helping it stay moist and turn golden.
Fat
Carries heat over the surface, promoting browning and crisping of the skin.

The step that matters

Remove the bacon about 20 minutes before serving. Removing the bacon late lets the breast skin brown and crisp. Leaving it on too long keeps the surface pale and can leave the bacon overcooked.

“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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