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To Hash Turkey

A hash made from roast turkey remains, eschalot, mushrooms, stock, and seasoned with pepper, salt, mace, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and mushroom work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 205 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Hash Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the turkey into neat joints or slices, and the stuffing as well.

  2. Put the bones and trimmings into a stewpan with the eschalot and sliced mushrooms. Cover with stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and mace, then strain the stock after 10 minutes.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the turkey in the strained stock.

  2. Warm the forcemeat slices in a toaster.

  3. Place the forcemeat around a dish, add the hash in the middle, and pour gravy over it. Garnish with slices of toast.

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. Turkey + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together205 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turkey + macetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together254 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Remains of a roast turkey
Provides the meat that is gently reheated and forms the body of the hash.
Stock
Carries the flavour of the bones and trimmings and keeps the meat moist as it heats.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour to the stock.
Eschalot
Adds mild aromatic onion flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Heat the turkey in the strained stock. Turkey is lean and dries out and toughens if it boils or overheats. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and moist.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, mushroom, 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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