Name: Turkey Hash
Ingredients: roasted turkey, chopped fine; cream; butter; salt and pepper to taste; toast, buttered; eggs, poached (one for each person)

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turkey Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

In a saucepan, combine the chopped roasted turkey and enough cream to coat it.
Add a little butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Heat the mixture thoroughly until warmed through.

Serve

Serve the turkey hash over warm, buttered toast.
Top each serving with a poached egg.
Serve piping hot.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted turkey: Forms the main body of the hash and provides its savory, meaty flavor.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness so the turkey stays tender while heating.
Butter: Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother texture in the warmed mixture.
Eggs: Poached eggs add a soft, runny yolk that enriches each serving.

“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.