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Turkey, with Mustard Sauce

A dish of turkey legs marinated in mustard and piquante sauce, simmered in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,120 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turkey, with Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Score the turkey legs deeply.

  2. Pour the mustard and piquante sauce over the legs.

  3. Let them soak for at least 1 hour.

  4. Prepare the brown sauce as directed.

  5. Add the turkey legs and marinate to the brown sauce.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with the sauce strained over.

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. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Turkey + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turkey + mustardtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey legs
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that penetrates the scored meat during soaking.
Brown sauce
Provides the savoury base that the turkey simmers in, adding moisture and rich flavour.
Piquante sauce
Adds tangy, acidic flavour to the marinade.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Simmering gently keeps the liquid below a hard boil, so the meat cooks through and turns tender without toughening or drying out. Boiling vigorously can make the muscle fibres contract and the meat tougher.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, 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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