Name: Roasted Turkey with Sausages
Ingredients: 1 turkey, stuffed with rich dressing; small fried sausages; chestnuts, cooked in broth; watercress; giblet sauce, well-thickened

Why it works: Chestnut and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roasted Turkey with Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Stuff the turkey with rich dressing.
Roast the turkey until done, then remove it to a platter.
Surround the turkey with small fried sausages and chestnuts cooked in broth.
Place a handful of watercress at each end of the platter.
Serve with a well-thickened giblet sauce.

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.

Chestnut + watercresstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turkey + chestnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Watercress + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together295 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Chestnut + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turkey + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together531 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).