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Turkey, with Mustard Sauce

Turkey legs marinated in mustard and piquant sauce, simmered in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,120 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turkey, with Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Score the turkey legs deeply.

  2. Pour the mustard and piquant sauce over the legs.

  3. Let them soak for at least 1 hour, or longer if preferred.

Cook and serve

  1. Prepare the brown sauce as directed.

  2. Add the turkey legs and marinade to the brown sauce.

  3. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve on a hot dish with the sauce strained over.

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. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Turkey + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turkey + mustardtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey legs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the sauce.
Brown sauce
Forms the savoury body of the dish and keeps the meat moist during simmering.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that penetrates the meat during the soak.
Piquant sauce
Contributes tangy, acidic flavour that balances the richness of the brown sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the connective tissue in the turkey break down slowly, so the meat turns tender instead of tough and dry.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, sauce. 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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