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Almond Dressing for Turkey

A creamy almond-based dressing for turkey, made with butter, egg whites, bread crumbs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Almond Dressing for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the almonds with a little water to make a paste.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated bread with melted butter and hot water.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, pepper, thyme, and sage.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and nutmeg until well combined.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Bind the bread mixture and help give the dressing a light, set structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the bread for a tender texture.
Grated bread
Forms the body of the dressing and soaks up butter and liquid.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and body when pounded into a paste.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, bread, nutmeg, pepper, thyme, sage):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, nutmeg, pepper, thyme, sage. 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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