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Martha’s Ordinary Veal or Turkey Stuffing

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Martha’s Ordinary Veal or Turkey Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the suet as finely as possible.

  2. If using dried herbs, add a spoonful of spinach greening for color.

  3. Wash and dry the parsley and other green herbs thoroughly before chopping.

  4. Mix in any optional ingredients like ham, tongue, liver, mushrooms, bacon, anchovy, oyster, or truffles thoughtfully.

  5. Ensure the proportions are balanced and not left to chance.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together778 recipes

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

  4. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + mushroomtop 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 spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, ham, liver, mushroom, anchovy, oyster, truffle):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, ham, liver, mushroom, anchovy, oyster, truffle. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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