Name: Boned Turkey
Ingredients: 1 turkey; 6 slices of salt pork; 3-4 large Irish potatoes; 1 tablespoon butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; salad made of shoat, veal or lamb, chopped and seasoned with celery

Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Boned Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Detach the wings and legs from the turkey by twisting and cracking the joints.
Run a knife between the bones and flesh to reach the breast bone, then repeat on the other side.
Remove the craw and detach the rump from the bone without cutting the skin.
Pull the skin down from the neck until the breast bone is uncovered, then cut the flesh from the bone.
Lay the turkey on its back, holding it by the neck, and separate the skin from the end of the bone.
Remove the bones from the wings and legs, leaving the flesh intact, and pull out the tendons.
Prepare a salad with chopped shoat, veal or lamb, and mix in the boiled and mashed potatoes with butter.
Season the inside of the turkey with salt and pepper, then layer with salt pork and salad alternately until filled.

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.

Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together830 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Potatothe original
Tomatofits about as well
Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pork, butter, pepper, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.