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To Roast a Turkey

A method for roasting a turkey with a butter and flour gravy, including preparation of heart and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Flour the turkey and place it in a roasting pan with a little water.

  3. Roast the turkey slowly for about 3 hours.

  4. After 1.5 hours, flour the turkey again thickly.

  5. Baste the turkey often once the flour is browned.

  6. If excess fat collects, dip off most of it halfway through cooking.

  7. Add a small piece of butter to the gravy and baste the turkey with it.

Make the gravy

  1. Wash the heart and liver, then boil them in 1 pint of water for 1.5 hours.

  2. Skim the water when it first boils and add more if it evaporates.

  3. Remove the heart and gizzard, mash the liver, and return it to the boiling water.

  4. Pour the gravy from the roasting pan into the saucepan.

  5. Add browned flour, mix until smooth, and season with butter and pepper.

  6. Boil the gravy for 1-2 minutes before serving.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turkey + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Is the main dish; slow roasting cooks it through while keeping the meat moist.
Flour
Coats the skin and browns in the oven, building a crisp, colored crust and thickening the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and gives the basting liquid and gravy richer flavor.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavor and color.

The step that matters

Basting the turkey once the flour is browned. Basting with the pan juices and fat keeps the surface from drying out and encourages an even golden color. Basting too early, before the flour has set, can wash the coating off.

“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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