Why it works: Chestnut and meat work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Roast Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the outer husk and inner skin from the chestnuts.
Boil the chestnuts until tender and use them to fill the body of the turkey.
Truss the turkey like an ordinary fowl.
If the fire is very fierce, protect the breast with oiled paper for the first hour.
Roast the turkey, adjusting the fire as needed, until cooked through.
Serve on a hot dish, garnished with fresh watercress if desired.
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.
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Chestnut + meattop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together164 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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