Name: Boiled Turkey
Ingredients: 1 turkey; minced suet; lean ham or liver (parboiled and minced); flour (for dusting); oyster salad or white onion sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Ham and oyster work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 360 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Boiled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing by mixing minced suet, lean ham or parboiled minced liver.
Stuff the turkey with the mixture.
Dust the turkey with flour and wrap it in a cloth.
Place the wrapped turkey in cold water and bring to a gentle boil.
Serve with oyster salad or white onion sauce.

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.

Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together360 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Turkey + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together963 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,582 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).