Name: Two Turkey Poults
Ingredients: 2 turkey poults; butter; skewers

Why it works: Turkey and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Two Turkey Poults

Ingredients

2 turkey poults
butter
skewers

Directions

Prepare

Lard the turkey poults.
Skewer the poults with the legs turned under.
Leave the head and neck on.
Turn the head around and fasten it to the first skewer.

Roast

Place the poults on the spit.
Cook over the fire for a few minutes before singeing.
Baste with butter.
Roast like fowls for about twenty minutes.

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.

Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey poults: The main meat, whose protein sets firm and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter: Adds fat that carries flavour, keeps the surface moist and helps it brown.

“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.