Name: Chestnut Stuffing for Turkeys and Geese
Ingredients: 1 pound French sausage meat; 1 pound roasted chestnuts; ½ pound roasted chestnuts, in pieces; ¼ pound fine bread crumbs; 1 egg, beaten; Chopped liver (amount to taste); Chopped parsley (amount to taste)

Why it works: Chestnut and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chestnut Stuffing for Turkeys and Geese

Ingredients

1 pound French sausage meat
1 pound roasted chestnuts
½ pound roasted chestnuts, in pieces
¼ pound fine bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
Chopped liver (amount to taste)
Chopped parsley (amount to taste)

Directions

Prepare

Mash 1 pound of roasted chestnuts with a fork.
Add ½ pound of roasted chestnuts in pieces, ¼ pound of fine bread crumbs, chopped liver, and chopped parsley.
Mix all ingredients together with 1 beaten egg.

Stuff and roast

Stuff the mixture into the turkey before roasting.

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.

Chestnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Chestnut + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together191 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Roasted chestnuts: Provide the main body and starchy, sweet texture of the stuffing.
Fine bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and help the stuffing hold its shape.
Egg: Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, egg, liver, parsley):

Walnutfits about as well
Chestnutthe original
Peasfits about as well
Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, egg, liver, parsley. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Chestnut Soup52 recipes

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Chestnut Stuffing for Turkeys and Geese