Name: De LA Dinde
Ingredients: 1 turkey; coarse sea salt; black pepper; mustard; lemon

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the gills from the turkey and set aside the thighs for cold serving with a sauce.
Cut the wings into pieces and remove the breast and tender parts.
Break the back above the tail and detach the thighs.
Reserve the back piece and cut the front to serve hot.
Serve a portion of stuffing with each piece.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together15,427 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Turkey + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,637 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Mustard + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,815 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Turkey + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together464 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).