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To Roast a Turkey Poult

A method for roasting a young turkey (poult), basted with butter and served with gravy.

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 ↓

To Roast a Turkey Poult

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the gills from the turkey poult and prepare it for roasting.

Roast and serve

  1. Baste the turkey poult well with good butter.

  2. Roast for 1 to 1¼ hours, ensuring it is cooked through.

  3. Serve with gravy poured around it.

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

Turkey poult
Is the main protein that becomes the dish, cooking through to tender meat.
Good butter
Adds fat and flavour to the skin and helps it brown as it roasts.

The step that matters

Roast for 1 to 1¼ hours, ensuring it is cooked through. Poultry must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. Undercooked turkey is a food safety risk, while overcooking dries the lean meat. Checking the thickest part of the bird, such as the thigh, helps confirm it is done.

“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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