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Poultry Roast Turkey

A roasted turkey prepared with baking soda, salt, pepper, dressing, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,636 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Poultry Roast Turkey

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe the turkey and draw it carefully, avoiding breaking the intestines.

  2. Cut off the oil pot from the tail and wash the inside with several waters, adding baking soda to the last wash.

  3. Wipe the turkey dry inside and out with a clean cloth.

  4. Rub the inside with coarse sea salt and stuff with dressing.

Truss and season

  1. Sew up the turkey with strong thread, tying the legs and wings to the body, or use toothpicks and lace with string.

  2. Dredge the turkey with flour and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast

  1. Place in a roasting pan with 2 cups of boiling water and baste often.

  2. Roast for 3 to 4 hours until pierced by a fork and the liquid runs clear.

  3. If the turkey is old, steam for 2 hours before roasting to brown.

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. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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 cooks through to become tender when roasted.
Baking soda
Added to the last wash to alter the surface of the bird, aiding browning.
Flour
Dusted on the outside to help the skin brown during roasting.
Dressing
Stuffed inside the bird, where it absorbs juices and flavor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Roasting time and doneness. Roasting for too short a time leaves the thickest parts undercooked, while the bird must reach a safe internal temperature. Piercing with a fork and checking that the juices run clear helps confirm the meat is cooked through.

“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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