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Holiday Spaghetti Casserole

A casserole of cooked spaghetti topped with turkey, peas, and crushed rice flakes, baked until heated through.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,434 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Holiday Spaghetti Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

  2. Combine the diced turkey or chicken and cooked peas in a bowl.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the Heinz Cooked Spaghetti in a large or individual casserole dish.

  2. Add the turkey and pea mixture on top of the spaghetti.

  3. Sprinkle finely crushed Heinz Rice Flakes over the top.

  4. Bake for 20 minutes until heated through.

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. Peas + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Turkey + ricetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Turkey + peastop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Diced cooked turkey or chicken
Provides the protein and the main bulk of the casserole.
Cooked peas
Add sweetness, color and a soft, tender bite to the filling.
Heinz cooked spaghetti
Forms the base layer that soaks up moisture and holds the casserole together.
Heinz rice flakes
Crushed on top, they form a crisp topping that adds texture as the dish heats.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, rice. 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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