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Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a cracker and herb dressing, served with a gravy made from its giblets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Make a dressing by mixing crackers, pepper, salt, sage, summer savory, parsley, eggs, butter, and enough cold water to moisten.

  2. Stuff the turkey, filling the breast first and then the body.

  3. Tie the legs tightly, skewer the wings to the body, and secure the neck under the body with a skewer.

  4. Rub the turkey with salt and place it on a spit or in the oven.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste often with drippings and flour, and occasionally with butter.

  2. About 15 minutes before serving, baste with butter and sprinkle with flour for a frothy appearance.

  3. Roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes for an 8-pound turkey, or 1 hour and 30 minutes plus 15 minutes for each additional pound.

Make the giblet gravy

  1. For giblet gravy, boil the heart, gizzard, liver, and neck in 2 quarts of water for 2 hours.

  2. Chop the gizzard and heart, braid the liver, and return them to the pot.

  3. Thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with cold water, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 1 hour.

  4. When the turkey is done, add the drippings to the gravy, boil once, and serve.

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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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

Turkey (in the method)
Provides the main protein and body of the roast, cooking through as the centre of the dish.
Eggs
Bind the dressing so it holds together when cooked.
Pounded crackers
Form the bulk of the dressing and absorb moisture from the butter and water.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown when basted over the bird.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into gravy and helps create a frothy, browned surface.

The step that matters

Roast timing for the turkey's weight. Cooking time depends on the bird's weight, and an underdone turkey risks unsafe meat while overcooking dries it out. Check doneness at the thickest part of the thigh rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, summer savory, parsley, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, summer savory, parsley, egg, butter, flour. 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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