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To Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey prepared with butter, suet, egg, stuffing, optional soy, and served with gravy and bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the sinews from the legs.

  2. Twist the head under the wing.

  3. Stuff the turkey with sausage meat or bread stuffing.

  4. Cover the turkey with a floured cloth.

  5. Boil the turkey to make it white.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the turkey, ensuring the heat reaches the breast.

  2. Place a strip of paper on the bone to prevent scorching.

  3. Baste the turkey well.

  4. Froth the turkey up.

  5. Serve with gravy and plenty of 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. 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young hen turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat is cooked through by roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that helps browning and a richer flavour on the roasted surface.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and helps the skin brown during roasting.
Egg
Helps bind the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.

The step that matters

Place a strip of paper on the bone to prevent scorching. Thin bones and exposed ends brown and burn faster than the meat around them. A paper shield slows that browning so the surface cooks evenly without charring.

“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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