Name: Boiled Turkey
Ingredients: 1 turkey, prepared for baking or roasting; Oyster stuffing (prepared as desired); Coarse sea salt; Salted boiling water; Thin slices of pickled salt pork, bacon, or ham for serving

Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Boiled Turkey

Ingredients

1 turkey, prepared for baking or roasting
Oyster stuffing (prepared as desired)
Coarse sea salt
Salted boiling water
Thin slices of pickled salt pork, bacon, or ham for serving

Directions

Fill the turkey with oyster stuffing and tie the legs and wings close to the body.
Place the turkey breast down in salted boiling water.
Skim the water often and boil for about 2 hours, but do not let the skin break.
Serve with oyster or celery sauce and a thin slice of pickled salt pork, bacon, or ham.

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.

Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together830 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Oyster + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,255 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

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