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A stew of turkey pieces simmered with onions, broth, stuffing, and pickled walnut vinegar, finished with mushroom ketchup and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and walnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 14 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Dust the turkey pieces with flour, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. If the cold roast-turkey gravy is unsuitable, melt butter in a stew-pan.

Make the stew

  1. Half-fry sliced onions in the melted butter until light brown.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of flour, brown it, and gradually stir in 1 pint of broth.

  3. Add the turkey pieces, cover the stew-pan, and let simmer gently for 1 hour.

  4. Warm the remnants of stuffing in the stew-pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully arrange the turkey on a hot dish.

  2. To the sauce, add 2 teaspoons of mushroom ketchup, 2 teaspoons of pickled-walnut vinegar, nutmeg, cayenne, and pickled mushrooms.

  3. Boil the sauce while stirring to keep it smooth, then pour it over the turkey.

  4. Garnish with toasted bread, lemon slices, and forcemeat balls if desired.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Turkey + walnuttop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Walnut + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Turkey + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together205 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,619 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey pieces
Provide the meat that becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and gives it body as it browns and mixes with the broth.
Sliced onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they fry to light brown in the butter.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour of the stew.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.
Pickled-walnut vinegar
Adds acidity and tangy flavour that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce while stirring. Flour thickens the sauce only when it is heated enough, and stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce stays smooth rather than lumpy.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, walnut, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, flour, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, walnut, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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