Skip to main content
Main

Devilled Turkey

Roasted turkey legs served with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turkey and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Devilled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and broil

  1. Oil the bars of a gridiron.

  2. Lay the turkey legs on the gridiron.

  3. Broil the legs over or in front of a clear fire for 10 to 12 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the legs and arrange them on a hot dish.

  2. Place one or two small pieces of fresh butter on top.

  3. Serve immediately, garnished with fresh 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. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Turkey + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together532 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey legs
Provide the meat that is cooked over direct heat until browned and cooked through.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over the hot meat.

The step that matters

Broil the legs over or in front of a clear fire for 10 to 12 minutes. Broiling needs a clear, steady heat. Too little heat leaves the skin pale and the meat underdone, while too much can char the outside before the inside is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter. 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.

You might also like

Turkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipesTurkey DressingTurkey Dressing24 recipesTurkey PattiesTurkey Patties12 recipes