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Turkey, Roasted

Roasted turkey stuffed with sausage and veal forcemeat, topped with bacon, 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, Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F 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 of the bird.

  3. Skewer the bacon over the breast.

  4. Baste well with hot fat.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 1 to 2½ hours, depending on the age and size of the bird.

  2. Baste frequently.

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

  4. Remove the trussing strings, serve on a hot dish, and send the gravy and bread sauce to the table 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 body of the dish, cooking through in the oven as the centrepiece.
Sausage meat
Fills the crop, adding richness and moisture to the stuffing as it cooks.
Veal forcemeat
Provides a moist, tender stuffing that cooks inside the bird.
Bacon
Covers the breast to baste it with fat, and is removed later so the breast can brown.
Fat
Used for basting, carrying heat over the surface and helping it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Remove the bacon about 20 minutes before serving. Removing the bacon late lets the breast skin brown and crisp, since the bacon would otherwise keep it pale and soft. Timing matters so the breast browns without overcooking the meat.

“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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