Why it works: Pepper and celery 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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the turkey
Rub the turkey thoroughly with coarse sea salt.
Tie the legs down.
Cut two joints from the wing.
Make the stuffing
Heat lard and butter in a pan.
Add a chopped onion and sauté.
Add stale bread crumbs that have been soaked in water. Mix the crumbs well.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and chopped celery. Fry the mixture together.
Remove the mixture from heat to cool.
Stuff, roast and finish
Stuff the turkey with the mixture.
Lard the outside of the turkey.
Place the stuffed turkey in a pan with a little water.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done.
Brush the turkey with cream to brown nicely.
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.
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Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together822 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by slow roasting.
- Stale bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and form the body of the stuffing.
- Lard
- Adds fat for flavour and helps the outside brown and stay moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavour to the sautéed stuffing base.
- Cream
- Brushed on the surface, its milk solids help the skin brown.
- Celery
- Adds moisture and a fresh, aromatic savoury flavour to the stuffing.
The step that matters
Brush the turkey with cream to brown nicely.. Milk proteins and sugars in cream brown through the Maillard reaction in the oven, so the cream should go on before the bird is fully browned and it should be checked so the surface does not darken too far.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, bread, pepper, cream):
- Nutmegfits better
- Sagefits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, bread, pepper, cream. 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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