Skip to main content
Main

Roast Turkey and Gravy

Roast Turkey and Gravy is a dish of a turkey roasted and served with a gravy made from flour, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Turkey and Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Do not salt the turkey.

  2. Fill the turkey with dressing.

  3. Place the turkey in a double roaster without water.

Roast

  1. Do not baste the turkey.

  2. Maintain a gentle sizzle while baking.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes per pound.

  4. About 1.5 hours before it is done, pour over the gravy made from boiling water, flour mixed with a small quantity of water, butter, and salt.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and butter 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 roast; its meat cooks through during the long bake.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the turkey and clings to the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy, carrying flavour and smoothness.

The step that matters

Pour over the gravy about 1.5 hours before done. Flour thickens only when it is heated in liquid, so the gravy must be made and poured at the right time. Adding it too early can make it reduce too much, while adding it too late leaves the turkey without its flavour and gravy coating.

“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.

You might also like

Turkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipesTurkey DressingTurkey Dressing24 recipesTurkey PattiesTurkey Patties12 recipes