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Hashed Turkey

A dish of leftover turkey sautéed with onion, butter, flour, and water, seasoned with coarse sea salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Cut the leftover turkey into small pieces.

  2. Remove the upper warty part of the neck and head, but reserve the brains if desired.

Make the hash

  1. Melt butter in a pan and sauté chopped onion until soft.

  2. Add turkey pieces and cook until heated through.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir in flour and add water to create a sauce.

  5. Simmer until the mixture thickens, then serve.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover turkey
Supplies the cooked meat that forms the bulk of the hash.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the pan and softens the onion.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it softens in the butter.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat and thickens the liquid into a sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the mixture thickens. Flour starch only swells and thickens fully when heated long enough while simmering. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and can leave a raw, floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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