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Stuffing for Turkey

A savory mixture of crushed biscuit, salt pork, sage, egg yolk, and pepper used as a turkey stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffing for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crush the biscuit into fine crumbs.

  2. Finely chop the raw salt pork.

  3. Pound the sage until fine.

Combine

  1. Combine the biscuit, salt pork, sage, and yolk of egg (if using) in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper to taste.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  4. Biscuit + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Biscuit
Crumbs form the bulk of the stuffing and give it body.
Salt pork
Its fat melts during cooking, adding moisture and richness to the stuffing.
Egg yolk
Binds the crumbs and fat together so the stuffing holds its shape.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, pork, egg, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, pork, egg, pepper. 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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