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Roast Turkey

A roast turkey with bread, oysters, celery, egg, butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Scald the bread with boiling water.

  2. Chop the turkey liver, oysters, celery, and raw egg very fine.

  3. Mix with butter and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Roast the turkey

  1. Dredge the turkey with flour and place small bits of butter on the breast.

  2. Season the turkey with salt and pepper.

  3. Roast the turkey for 2.5 to 3 hours, basting frequently.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Scalded bread softens and absorbs moisture, giving the stuffing a tender body.
Oysters
Chopped oysters add a briny, savory flavor to the stuffing.
Raw egg
Egg binds the chopped ingredients together so the stuffing holds its shape.
Butter
Butter adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Flour
Flour dredged over the bird helps form a crisp, browned skin.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey for 2.5 to 3 hours, basting frequently. Basting moistens the surface as it cooks, helping the skin brown evenly while the meat stays juicy rather than drying out over the long roast.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, oyster, egg, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, oyster, egg, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour. 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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