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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a cracker and herb dressing, basted with butter and flour, served with gravy and cranberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a dressing by mixing crackers, pepper, salt, sage, summer savory, parsley, eggs, butter, and enough cold water to moisten.

  2. Stuff the turkey, starting with the breast and then the body.

  3. Cross and tie the legs tightly, skewer the wings to the body, and secure the neck with a skewer and twine.

  4. Rub the turkey with salt and place it on a spit.

Roast

  1. Baste often with drippings and flour, and occasionally with butter.

  2. About 15 minutes before serving, baste with butter and dredge with flour for a frothy appearance.

  3. Roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes if using a tin kitchen, or 1 hour and 30 minutes plus 15 minutes for each additional pound in the oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with giblet gravy and cranberry 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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
The main protein, which firms as it cooks and browns on the outside.
Crackers
Soak up moisture and give the dressing body and a soft, crumbly structure.
Eggs
Bind the dressing so it holds together when spooned into the bird.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the dressing and skin moist and flavorful.
Flour
Dredged over the bird to help create a golden, frothy browned surface.

The step that matters

Cooking the stuffing fully. Dressing with raw eggs sits inside the bird and heats slowly, so it must reach a safe internal temperature. Checking the centre of the stuffing, not just the turkey, protects against undercooked eggs.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sage, summer savory, egg, butter, flour, turkey):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, summer savory, egg, butter, flour, turkey. 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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