Name: Truffled Turkey
Ingredients: 1 turkey; bacon; truffles; coarse sea salt; black pepper

Why it works: Turkey and truffle work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Truffled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the bacon and truffles together.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Stuff the turkey with the mixture after dressing it.
Sew up the turkey and truss it.
Keep the turkey in a cold place for three days.
Roast or bake the turkey carefully, saving all drippings.
Make gravy using the giblets and some drippings from the turkey and truffles.
Serve the truffled turkey hot or cold.

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 + truffletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,106 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).