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Stuffing for Turkey or Chicken

A bread-based stuffing cooked with butter, salt, pepper, sage or marjoram, optionally with oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the crusts from the bread and crumble it finely.

  2. In a large frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

Make the stuffing

  1. Stir in the bread crumbs and cook until light brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and sage or marjoram to taste.

  3. For oyster stuffing, add the oysters to the bread crumbs.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Provides the bulk and structure of the stuffing, absorbing fat and flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the bread crumbs toast and brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Stirring the bread crumbs while they cook. Crumbs toast quickly over direct heat and can scorch before they turn light brown. Constant stirring keeps the browning even and prevents burnt, bitter flavour.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, oyster):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, oyster. 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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