Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Truffled Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select a young, plump, freshly-killed turkey.
Wash the truffles thoroughly and scrub them with a soft brush.
Cut 1 pound of truffles into 1.5-inch balls.
Make the forcemeat
Pound the remaining truffles with the trimmings and an equal weight of fat bacon until smooth.
Season the forcemeat with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Mix the truffle balls with the forcemeat and stuff the turkey.
Hang and roast
Hang the stuffed turkey for 5-6 days.
Before roasting, place a slice of fat bacon on the breast and cover it with buttered paper.
Baste 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 + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,209 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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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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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Truffles
- Provide the dominant aroma and flavour of the dish.
- Fat bacon
- Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat and carries the truffle aroma.
- Butter
- Basting adds fat that helps the skin brown and keeps the surface moist.
The step that matters
Pounding the forcemeat until smooth. Pounding the truffles with the fat bacon breaks them into a uniform paste, so the fat and aroma spread evenly through the stuffing instead of collecting in pockets.
“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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