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Turkey Devilled

A seasoned turkey leg with mustard, vinegar, and spices, grilled over a clear fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Turkey Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gash the turkey leg all over lengthwise down to the bone.

  2. Rub pepper, cayenne, and salt into the gashes.

  3. Mix mustard with vinegar to make about ½ cup.

Grill

  1. Rub the mustard into the gashes and spread it on the outside.

  2. Grill over a clear fire and serve 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.

  1. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turkey + mustardtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 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

Turkey leg
Provides the main meat, which the seasonings and mustard coat and flavour.
Made mustard
Adds sharp tang and flavour that penetrates the gashes and coats the surface.
Cayenne
Adds heat and a spicy finish to the meat.

The step that matters

Grill over a clear fire. Cooking over a clear fire, without heavy flames or smoke, lets the turkey cook through and brown evenly. Flare-ups can scorch the mustard and seasonings before the meat is hot inside.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper. 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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