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Turkey Legs

A savory pastry shaped like a turkey leg, made from eggs, pecan meal, peanut butter, gluten, and flavored with sage and zwieola.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,754 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Turkey Legs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil the eggs until the yolks are dry and mealy, then rub both the whites and yolks through a fine wire sieve.

  2. Mix the pecan meal and peanut butter with the egg mixture until smooth, adding a little water as needed.

  3. Pour ½ cup of water over the zwieola and let it soak for a few minutes.

  4. Add the zwieola to the egg mixture, beating well, then add the gluten until the mixture is stiff enough to handle.

Shape and bake

  1. Take a large heaping tablespoon of the mixture and press it around a piece of macaroni (4–5 inches long) to form a turkey leg shape, leaving part of the macaroni exposed to represent the bone.

  2. Roll in beaten egg and bake on an oiled baking sheet at 400 °F (200 °C) until golden brown.

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. Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Peanut + sagetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

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

  5. Egg + peanuttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body and binding for the dough, and the beaten egg gives browning on the surface.
Gluten
Adds structure so the mixture becomes stiff enough to shape and hold its form.
Zwieola
Soaked in water first, it adds moisture and body to the dough.
Pecan meal
Adds richness and texture to the dough.
Peanut butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the dough become smooth.

The step that matters

Shaping the dough around the macaroni. The mixture must be stiff enough to hold its shape around the macaroni, since gluten sets the structure. If it is too wet it will slump and spread in the oven instead of keeping the leg shape.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, peanut, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, peanut, butter. 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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