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To Roast a Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a force‑meat mixture of breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, and optional ham, served with mushroom sauce and stewed cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 957 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Mix grated bread-crumbs, minced suet, sweet marjoram, grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, and a beaten egg yolk to make a force-meat.

  2. Optionally add grated cold ham to the force-meat.

  3. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard for the gravy.

Roast the turkey

  1. Singe the hairs from the turkey's skin using a lit piece of writing paper.

  2. Stuff the turkey with the force-meat, forming extra balls for frying to place around the turkey when served.

  3. Dredge the turkey with flour.

  4. Roast it before a clear, brisk fire, basting it with cold lard.

  5. Move the turkey closer to the fire.

  6. Dredge it lightly with flour.

  7. Baste it with batter.

  8. Roast the turkey for 2 to 3 hours, depending on its size.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Cut the giblets into pieces and stew them in a small amount of water for 2 hours.

  2. Thicken with a spoonful of browned flour.

  3. Stir in the drippings from the pan after skimming off the fat.

  4. Serve the turkey with ham or tongue, mushroom sauce, and stewed cranberries.

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. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolk binds the force-meat so it holds together when stuffed and cooked.
Grated bread-crumbs
Bread crumbs soak up fat and add body to the force-meat stuffing.
Minced suet
Suet adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Browned flour
Browned flour thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavour.
Cold lard
Lard basted over the turkey adds fat that promotes browning and crisp skin.

The step that matters

Roast before a clear, brisk fire, then move closer to the fire. A brisk, steady heat browns the skin and cooks the bird through; too low a heat leaves the skin pale and the meat slow to cook, while basting with fat helps the surface brown evenly.

“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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