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Chestnut Stuffing

Chestnut stuffing for turkey made with chestnuts, parsley, onion, egg yolks, sausage, bread crumbs, butter, bacon, and seasonings.

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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the chestnuts

  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. Cut the partially fried sausage into 1-inch pieces and mix with bread crumbs, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the remaining whole chestnuts to the sausage mixture.

  3. Stuff the turkey body with this mixture, sew it up, and truss it.

Roast the turkey

  1. Rub the turkey with soft butter, salt, and pepper, then 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 + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Their starch and mild sweetness give the stuffing body and a nutty flavor.
Egg yolks
They bind the chestnut mixture and help it hold together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
They absorb moisture and add bulk, giving the stuffing a soft, tender texture.
Sausage
Its fat and seasoning enrich the stuffing and add savory flavor.
Butter
It adds richness and fat, helping the stuffing taste rounded and encouraging browning.
Salt smoked bacon
Its fat bastes the surface and its smoky salt adds flavor and browning.

The step that matters

Stuff the turkey loosely and sew it up. Stuffing packed tightly expands and stays raw in the center, while the bird cooks unevenly. Loose filling lets heat reach the stuffing and keeps the meat moist.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, parsley, pepper, egg, bread, 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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