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Turkey, Minced

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkey, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove skin, bone, and sinew from the turkey and mince the meat finely.

  2. Season the minced turkey with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Place the turkey in a saucepan with enough white sauce to moisten it.

  4. Simmer gently without boiling until heated through, stirring constantly.

  5. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with poached eggs and toasted sippets.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turkey + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

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

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