Why it works: Turkey and meat work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 540 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Turkey, Rolled
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the turkey down the middle into two parts and remove the bones without damaging the skin.
Lay the turkey pieces flat on a surface, skin side down, and spread a layer of forcemeat or sausage meat over each piece.
Roll the turkey pieces up tightly like a sausage and cover with slices of bacon, securing with twine.
Cook and serve
Cook the rolls in stock until half covered.
To serve hot, place the rolls on a hot dish, remove the twine, strain and thicken the sauce, and pour some over the meat.
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.
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Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together540 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young turkey
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is rolled and cooked.
- Forcemeat or sausage meat
- Adds a moist, seasoned filling layer that fills the cavity and flavours the rolled meat.
- Fat bacon
- Bastes the outside with fat as it cooks, keeping the lean turkey moist and adding savoury flavour.
The step that matters
Rolling the turkey tightly. If the rolls are loose, the filling can shift and gaps can form, and the rolls may cook unevenly or fall apart when sliced. Tight, even rolling holds the filling in place and helps the meat cook at a uniform rate.
“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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