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Turkey-and-Tongue Cromeskies

A fried roll of turkey and tongue wrapped in bacon and coated in a flour‑butter batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Turkey-and-Tongue Cromeskies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cut leftover turkey and tongue into small pieces.

  2. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  3. Mix in flour until combined.

  4. Pour in milk and stir until it boils.

  5. Add turkey and tongue to the sauce.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  7. Spread the mixture on a dish to cool.

  8. Divide the cooled mixture into small pieces.

  9. Wrap each piece in a slice of bacon.

Batter and fry

  1. Mix 3 ounces of flour with salad oil and warm water until smooth.

  2. Stir in frothed egg white.

  3. Heat clarified fat in a frying pan until blue smoke rises.

  4. Dip the bacon-wrapped rolls in the batter.

  5. Fry for 6-7 minutes, turning occasionally.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together281 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Flour
Thickens the butter into a sauce that binds the filling together.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce base for the filling.
Egg white
Frothed into the batter, it adds lightness and helps the coating puff and set when fried.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the white sauce, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Heat the clarified fat until blue smoke rises. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of golden and crisp.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

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