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Roast Turkey

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pluck the turkey and singe it with white paper. Wipe it thoroughly with a cloth.

  2. Draw the turkey, preserving the liver and gizzard without breaking the gall-bag.

  3. Wash the inside well and wipe it dry; the outside only needs wiping.

  4. Cut off the neck close to the back, leaving enough skin to turn over.

  5. Break the leg bones below the knee and draw out the strings from the thighs.

  6. Flatten the breastbone to make the turkey look plump.

  7. Prepare the dressing by mixing bread crumbs with butter, pepper, salt, and thyme.

  8. Fill the breast with the dressing and sew the neck skin over the back.

  9. Truss the turkey firmly, dredge it lightly with flour, and place butter in a basting ladle.

  10. As the butter melts, baste the turkey with it until it is nicely browned.

  11. Serve with brown gravy and bread sauce, placing the liver under one wing and the gizzard under the other.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Turkey + thymetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, bread, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, meat):

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, bread, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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