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Wild Turkey

A roasted wild turkey served with gravy, fried sausages, and cranberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wild Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw the turkey.

  2. Wash the turkey carefully.

  3. Wipe the cavity with a dry cloth.

  4. Prepare a stuffing with bread crumbs, chopped fat pork, pepper, salt, milk, egg, and melted butter.

  5. Stuff the turkey.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the turkey with butter and water for the first hour.

  2. Baste the turkey three to four times with gravy.

  3. Baste the turkey five to six times with melted butter.

  4. Dredge the turkey with flour.

  5. Froth the turkey with butter.

  6. Roast the turkey until golden brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim the gravy.

  2. Add hot water to the gravy.

  3. Add pepper to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with chopped giblets and browned flour.

  5. Serve the turkey with gravy, garnished with fried sausages and parsley, alongside currant jelly and cranberry sauce.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Wild turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and egg in the stuffing, giving it body and a moist, binding texture.
Fat pork
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a golden, rich crust on the turkey.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Roast the turkey until golden brown. Basting with fat and turning the bird during roasting helps the skin brown evenly. Under-browning leaves pale, soft skin, while overcooking dries the lean meat, so the timing matters.

“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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