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Turkey Drumsticks, Devilled

A recipe for turkey drumsticks coated with butter, mustard, cayenne, and black pepper, then grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Turkey Drumsticks, Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Score the drumsticks parallel to the bone.

  2. Mix butter, mustard, cayenne, and black pepper thoroughly.

  3. Spread the mixture into the slices cut in the meat.

  4. Rub the drumsticks with butter.

Grill

  1. Grill the drumsticks over a fierce fire.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Turkey drumsticks
Provide the meat that is scored, coated and grilled as the main dish.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, carrying the mustard and spices into the scored meat.
French mustard
Adds sharp, acidic flavour that complements the rich turkey meat.

The step that matters

Grill the drumsticks over a fierce fire. A fierce fire browns the surface quickly through the Maillard reaction, building flavour before the thick meat near the bone overcooks. Keeping the fire very hot shortens the time needed.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, 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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