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Turkey for Roasting

Roasted turkey seasoned with coarse sea salt and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Turkey for Roasting

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pick the turkey carefully, removing all plugs and singeing any hair with white paper.

  2. Draw the turkey without breaking the gall-bag to avoid bitterness.

Roast and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and ensure a clear, brisk fire.

  2. Roast the turkey for 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting continually for a frothy appearance.

  3. Serve with the gravy to retain flavor.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young turkey
Provides the main meat, which cooks through and browns in the dry heat of the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the skin during basting, helping it brown and look glossy.

The step that matters

Draw the turkey without breaking the gall-bag. The gall-bag sits against the liver and, if torn, releases bitter fluid that can spread flavor into the meat and drippings, so it should be removed intact.

“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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