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Turkey-bone Soup

A hearty soup made from turkey bones, vegetables, and homemade force‑meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Turkey-bone Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Break turkey bones apart.

  2. Place the bones in a soup kettle with water, salt, red pepper, celery, potatoes, and onions.

  3. Start cooking the soup early; for a 1 PM dinner, begin by 8 AM, or for a 6 PM dinner, by 12 PM.

  4. Let the soup boil slowly until half an hour before serving.

Finish the broth

  1. Remove the bones from the soup.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Strain the soup back into the kettle.

  4. If more soup is desired, add hot milk or milk and cream, or a little more water.

Make and add the turkey balls

  1. Finely chop turkey scraps. Mix the scraps with cracker crumbs, cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon peel, and summer savory or thyme.

  2. Add the beaten egg to the mixture.

  3. Roll the mixture into balls the size of hickory nuts.

  4. Drop the balls into the soup ten minutes before serving.

  5. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Celery + summer savorytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey bones
Give the broth its meaty, savory flavor as they simmer slowly.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding body and thickening the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Raw beaten egg
Binds the turkey mixture so it holds together as dumplings in the soup.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk, helping the turkey balls stay tender.

The step that matters

Drop the balls into the soup ten minutes before serving. The turkey balls are raw egg and meat mixtures that need to cook through. Adding them too early can make them tough or break them apart, while adding them too late leaves them undercooked in the centre.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, celery, potato, onion, turkey, meat, summer savory):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, celery, potato, onion, turkey, meat, summer savory. 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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