Name: Turkey with Truffles
Ingredients: truffles; bacon; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; spices; bay leaf; turkey

Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Turkey with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Clean and peel the truffles.
Chop half of the truffles finely with bacon.
In a stew pan, combine the chopped truffles and bacon with the whole truffles, butter, salt, pepper, spices, and bay leaf.
Cook on the fire for 15 minutes, then remove and let cool.
Stuff the turkey with the truffles.
Roast, stew, or prepare the turkey en daube like a duck or goose.

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.

Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + turkeytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Truffle + turkeytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together167 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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