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Pairing

Turkey + Mace

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 254 recipes, and they share 17 flavor molecules: the top 19% of all ingredient pairs.

Smell alikelow
Cooked together254 recipes
Ranktop 19% of pairs
Try them in the pairing tool Turkey Mace
287turkey only 17shared 17mace only Turkey · 304 Mace · 34
Circle size = number of flavor molecules on record. Overlap = molecules they share.

Do turkey and mace go together?

Yes. 254 recipes in our collection combine them, and they share 17 flavor molecules. That places them in the top 19% of every ingredient pair we score.

Why they work

More than half of mace's flavor molecules (17 of 34) also occur in turkey. Among the shared key aromas are myristicin (spice, warm) and sabinene (woody, terpenic). Most of what they share is background chemistry many foods carry, so the overlap does little for the smell.

What each one brings

turkey

The tartness. Sour notes make up 19% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 3% for mace. It carries 287 molecules mace doesn't have.

mace

The herbal side. Herbal notes make up 31% of its labelled aroma molecules, against 6% for turkey. It carries 17 molecules turkey doesn't have.

Add a third ingredient

  • Nutmeg: the best fit for both, top 16% of pairs with turkey, top 4% with mace.
  • Clove: top 17% of pairs with turkey, top 6% with mace.
  • Sage: top 9% of pairs with turkey, top 15% with mace.
  • Pork: top 7% of pairs with turkey, top 17% with mace.

Ranked by the average of its two pairing scores. Only foods used in at least 100 recipes are suggested.

Recipes with turkey and mace

We have no browsable recipe that lists both turkey and mace.

Can you swap one for the other?

Not really. Each has a lot the other lacks: turkey has 287 molecules mace doesn't, and mace has 17 that turkey doesn't. Treat them as partners, not stand-ins. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

All 17 shared molecules

See every shared molecule grouped by chemical class, with key aromas marked, plus the 287 only in turkey and the 17 only in mace.

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Turkey and mace questions

Do turkey and mace go together?

A good pairing. Cooks put them together in 254 recipes, and they share 17 flavor molecules: the top 19% of all ingredient pairs.

Why do turkey and mace taste good together?

More than half of mace's flavor molecules (17 of 34) also occur in turkey. Among the shared key aromas are myristicin (spice, warm) and sabinene (woody, terpenic). Most of what they share is background chemistry many foods carry, so the overlap does little for the smell.

What goes with turkey and mace?

Nutmeg is the best third ingredient: top 16% of pairs with turkey and top 4% with mace. Clove and sage also fit both.

Can I use mace instead of turkey?

Not really. Each has a lot the other lacks: turkey has 287 molecules mace doesn't, and mace has 17 that turkey doesn't. Treat them as partners, not stand-ins. This compares flavor only; texture, moisture and the job each does in a dish matter too.

Compare other ingredients

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2

Two ingredients gives the full side-by-side breakdown; add a third to see a similarity matrix across all of them (up to 6).

Ranks compare this pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. Molecule counts are what the studies and databases we aggregate have reported for each ingredient: a measure of coverage, not a full census. How we score pairs

Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). Compound similarity analysis: Turkey vs Mace. https://compkitchen.com/compare/turkey-vs-mace. Accessed 2026-11-04.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compare_compound_similarity_analysis_turkey_vs_mace_2026,
  title  = {Compound similarity analysis: Turkey vs Mace},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compare/turkey-vs-mace},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-04}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.