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Wild Turkey Ala Hanna

A roasted wild turkey served à la Hanna with chestnut spaghetti timbales and cream sauce with truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wild Turkey Ala Hanna

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Singe, draw, and remove the head from the turkey.

  2. Split the turkey but do not separate it completely.

  3. Season the turkey with a good pinch of coarse sea salt and a half pinch of black pepper.

  4. Cover the turkey with ½ tablespoon of sweet butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the turkey for 12 minutes on each side.

  2. Prepare timbale molds with spaghetti filled with puree of chestnuts.

  3. Decorate the dish and serve with cream sauce mixed with chopped truffles.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turkey + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pepper + chestnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild turkey
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked by broiling until done.
Sweet butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the turkey brown and stay moist under heat.
Spaghetti
Forms the timbale molds that hold the chestnut puree.
Puree of chestnuts
Provides a soft, starchy, sweet filling that contrasts with the broiled meat.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and a smooth, rich texture to the served dish.

The step that matters

Broil the turkey for 12 minutes on each side. Broiling is intense radiant heat, so the turkey can scorch on the outside before the thick parts cook through. Watching the surface and keeping the split bird flat helps the heat reach the center evenly.

“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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