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Stuffing for Turkey

A bread crumb mixture seasoned with butter, sage, pepper, and salt, used to fill a turkey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Soften the bread crumbs by pouring hot water over them.

  2. Add the butter, sage, pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix thoroughly.

Stuff the turkey

  1. Stuff the mixture into your turkey.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and soak up the hot water and butter.
Hot water
Softens the dry bread crumbs so they become moist and pliable.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat, richness and moisture that keeps the stuffing from drying out.
Dried sage
Contributes the herbal aroma that defines the stuffing's flavour.

The step that matters

Softening the bread crumbs with hot water. The crumbs need to absorb the water evenly before the butter and seasonings are added. Dry patches stay firm and chalky, while overly wet crumbs turn stodgy and dense.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper. 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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