Name: Turkey Hashed
Ingredients: remnants of turkey; 1 quart water; turkey gravy or white stock; 1 small piece butter; salt; pepper; flour

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turkey Hashed

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the turkey remnants into equal-sized pieces.
Boil the bones in 1 quart of water until reduced to 1 pint.
Remove the bones and add turkey gravy or white stock, butter, salt, and pepper to the liquid.

Cook and serve

Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the turkey pieces.
Dredge the turkey pieces in a little flour.
Bring the mixture to a boil again.
Serve in a hot dish.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Remnants of turkey: Provides the main meat and bulk of the hash.
Flour: Light dusting on the turkey pieces helps thicken the liquid as it cooks.
Turkey gravy or white stock: Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the hash.

“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.