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Chestnut Stuffing

A chestnut and sausage mixture used to stuff a turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chestnut Stuffing

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chestnut Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts and liver

  1. Roast, peel, and remove the inner brown skin from the chestnuts.

  2. In a mortar, pound 10 chestnuts with the cooked turkey liver.

  3. Add minced parsley, grated onion, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks to the mixture.

  4. Stuff this mixture into the turkey cavity and sew it up.

Make the sausage stuffing

  1. Partially fry the sausage in butter, then cut into 1-inch pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine sausage, bread crumbs, softened butter, and salt and pepper.

  3. Add the remaining whole chestnuts to this mixture.

  4. Stuff the turkey body with this mixture and sew it up.

Roast the turkey

  1. Truss the turkey, rub with soft butter, salt, and pepper, and dredge with flour or crumbs.

  2. Place strips of salt smoked bacon over the breast and areas that burn easily.

  3. Roast for 20 minutes per pound, basting frequently.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chestnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Chestnut + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chestnut + turkeytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Give the stuffing a starchy, soft body and a mild, nutty flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the pounded mixture so it holds together when stuffed and cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and juices and add bulk and body to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness, moisture, and browning to the stuffing and the turkey skin.
Sausage
Adds savoury fat and meaty flavour that seasons the stuffing as it cooks.
Salt smoked bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that bastes the breast and slows burning.

The step that matters

Stuff the turkey body with this mixture and sew it up.. Stuffing packed inside a bird must reach a safe internal temperature, so the stuffing needs to be cooked through; loose packing and a large mass slow heat penetration, so it should be filled loosely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, turkey, liver, parsley, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, turkey, liver, parsley, pepper, egg, butter. 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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