Name: Turk E Y, Fricasseed
Ingredients: 1 turkey; forcemeat; water; white sauce; celery sauce; oyster sauce; mushroom sauce; parsley and butter

Why it works: Celery and parsley 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 ↓

Turk E Y, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Pluck, draw, and singe the turkey with a piece of white paper.
Wash the turkey inside and out, then dry it thoroughly with a cloth.
Cut off the head and neck, draw the sinews of the thighs, and cut off the legs at the first joint.
Draw the legs into the body and fill the breast with forcemeat.
Run a skewer through the wing and the middle joint of the leg, breaking the breastbone to make the bird compact.
Place the turkey in enough hot water to cover it and bring to a boil, removing any scum that forms.
Let it simmer gently for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size.
Serve with white, celery, oyster, or mushroom sauce, or parsley and butter.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together205 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,006 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the celery

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

Thymefits better
Capersfits about as well
Marjoramfits about as well
Celerythe original

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