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Sage Dressing for Turkeys, Fowls, Geese, Etc.

A savory sage-based dressing for turkey and other poultry, made with onions, butter, bread crumbs, salt pork, celery, sage, egg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Sage Dressing for Turkeys, Fowls, Geese, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the chopped onions in butter until soft.

  2. In a bowl, mix the fried onions, soaked bread crumbs, minced salt pork, and chopped celery thoroughly.

  3. Add the chopped sage leaves, melted butter, and beaten egg to the mixture.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Stuff the bird

  1. Stuff the mixture into the turkey or other poultry before cooking.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soaked and squeezed dry, they form the bulk of the dressing and absorb the flavors.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when stuffed.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the onions and the dressing.
Onions
Fried until soft, they add sweetness and savory depth.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor throughout the stuffing.

The step that matters

Squeezing the soaked bread crumbs dry. Excess water left in the bread crumbs dilutes the seasoning and makes the dressing soggy, so it must be squeezed out before mixing.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pork, celery, sage, egg, pepper. 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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