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Baked Turkey

A roasted turkey stuffed with a bread crumb and oyster dressing, served with cranberry sauce, plum or currant jelly, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Baked Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the turkey

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the inside of the turkey with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Make a dressing by beating soaked bread crumbs until smooth; season with salt, pepper, and butter, and add the oysters.

  4. Fill the turkey with the dressing and sew the skin closed; tie the turkey in shape with twine.

  5. Rub the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper.

  6. Add water to the bottom of the baking pan.

Roast and serve

  1. Bake the turkey for 2.5 hours, basting often.

  2. When done, place the turkey on a hot dish.

  3. Pour off the fat from the pan, set it on the stove, and thicken the gravy with flour.

  4. Serve with cranberry sauce, plum or currant jelly, and celery.

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. Turkey + cranberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together97 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cranberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, and its meat cooks through during the long roast.
Bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and give the dressing a soft, bound structure inside the bird.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dressing and gives it a rich flavor and tender texture.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the turkey during the roast. Basting spreads fat and juices over the skin, helping it brown and stay moist. Infrequent basting can leave the skin dry and pale while the meat dries out during the long bake.

“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.

More oyster turkey recipes

Dressing 3 See all 5 →

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