Why it works: Truffle and turkey work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Truffled Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Select a young, plump, freshly-killed hen turkey.
Wash the truffles thoroughly with a soft brush, discarding any that are moldy.
Cut 1 pound of truffles into 1.5-inch balls.
Pound the remaining truffles with the trimmings and an equal weight of fat bacon until smooth.
Season the forcemeat with salt and pepper, then mix in the whole truffle balls.
Stuff the turkey with the truffle mixture and let it hang for 5-6 days.
Before roasting, place a slice of fat bacon on the turkey's breast and cover with buttered paper.
Baste the turkey liberally while roasting.
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.
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Truffle + turkeytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together167 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,636 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,106 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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