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Devilled Turkeys Legs

A roasted turkey leg coated with mustard, chutney, spices, and breadcrumbs, then grilled and garnished with butter and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 293 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Devilled Turkeys Legs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Score the turkey legs with deep, regular gashes both round and lengthwise.

  2. Brush the legs well with warmed butter.

  3. Mix together the mustards, chutney, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and salt, then spread the mixture evenly over the turkey legs.

  4. Sprinkle with browned bread crumbs and let sit overnight.

Grill and serve

  1. Prepare a clear fire and grill the legs quickly until browned and crisp.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with small bits of butter and garnish with watercress.

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. Mustard + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey legs
Provide the main meat, which the scoring and coating are applied to for flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface of the lean turkey as it cooks.
French mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that penetrates the scored meat and balances the richness.
English mustard
Adds heat and pungency that gives the coating its distinctive sharp bite.
Chutney
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the heat of the mustards.

The step that matters

Grilling the legs quickly over a clear fire. Browning and crisping happen on the surface, and a hot, clear fire sears the coating while the scored interior stays moist. A slow or smoky fire can scorch the crumbs or leave the meat dry before it cooks through.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, pepper, bread, watercress. 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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