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Turkey, Baked, Plain Method

A whole turkey baked slowly after being seasoned with coarse sea salt, then basted with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Turkey, Baked, Plain Method

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turkey

  1. Steam or boil the turkey until it is three-quarters cooked.

  2. Cool the turkey in the liquid.

  3. Dry the turkey.

  4. Flour the turkey.

  5. Wrap the turkey in greased paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the turkey slowly at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Baste the turkey with butter and flour to froth nicely.

  3. Serve the turkey with gravy and sausages, or with a chestnut purée.

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. Butter + flourtop 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 + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat cooks gently through the par-cooking and slow baking.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, helping the surface brown and turn golden as it bakes.
Flour
Dusted on the bird and mixed with butter for basting, helping the surface froth and brown.

The step that matters

Cool the turkey in the liquid. Letting the partly cooked bird rest in its cooking liquid lets it cool gradually, which helps keep the meat moist before drying and baking.

“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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