Name: Boiled Fowl and Rabbits
Ingredients: 1 turkey; 1 tablespoon parsley (for sauce); 2 tablespoons butter (for sauce); 1 cup celery (for sauce); 1 cup oyster sauce (optional); 1 cup boiled macaroni (for sauce); 1 cup milk (for sauce)

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Fowl and Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Sew the opening of the turkey neatly across the tack to hide the sewing when served.
Place the liver in one wing and the gizzard in the other, turning the wings back and securing them with a skewer.
Wrap the turkey in a cloth and boil it in warm water, ensuring it is fully covered.
Boil a small young turkey for 1.5 hours; a larger, older turkey may take 2.5 to 3 hours.
Once cooked, place the turkey in a hot dish and pour a little sauce over the breast.
Serve the remaining sauce in a sauce tureen.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together281 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

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

Swap the parsley

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

Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, sauce, butter, celery, oyster, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.