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Turkey, Devilled

A roast turkey seasoned with a spicy butter mixture and served with piquante sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Turkey, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the butter, cayenne, black pepper, curry powder, and ginger on a plate.

  2. Divide the turkey into serving pieces.

  3. Remove the skin and score the flesh deeply.

Season and rest

  1. Spread lightly with the devilled butter.

  2. Let the turkey sit for 1 hour or longer for a spicier flavor.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the turkey over the fire for about 8 minutes.

  2. Serve with piquante sauce or another suitable sauce.

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. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turkey + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold roast turkey
Provides the meat; it is already cooked, so grilling mainly heats and browns it.
Butter
Carries the spices onto the meat and adds richness and moisture to the surface.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat, which the seasoning builds as the turkey rests.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour from its ground spices.
Ground ginger
Adds a light, warm aroma that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Grill the turkey over the fire for about 8 minutes. The turkey is already cooked, so the goal is only to heat it through and brown the surface. Holding it too long over the fire can dry the meat, which is why the timing matters.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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