Name: Truffled Turkey
Ingredients: 1 young, plump hen turkey; 1½ pounds fresh truffles (for a moderate-sized bird); 2 pounds fresh truffles (for a large bird); 1 pound fat bacon; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 slice fat bacon (for roasting); buttered paper (for roasting)

Why it works: Turkey and truffle work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Truffled Turkey

Ingredients

1 young, plump hen turkey
1½ pounds fresh truffles (for a moderate-sized bird)
2 pounds fresh truffles (for a large bird)
1 pound fat bacon
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 slice fat bacon (for roasting)
buttered paper (for roasting)

Directions

Prepare the truffles

Smell the truffles and discard any that are mouldy.
Wash the truffles carefully, then scrub them with a soft brush until clean.
Cut about 1 pound of truffles into balls 1½ inches in diameter.
Pound the remaining truffles with the trimmings.

Make the stuffing

Mix the pounded truffles with the rasped bacon.
Season the forcemeat with salt and pepper.
Mix the seasoned forcemeat with the whole truffles.
Stuff the turkey with the truffle mixture.
Let the stuffed turkey hang for 5–6 days.

Roast

Place a slice of fat bacon on the turkey's breast.
Cover the turkey with buttered paper.
Baste the turkey liberally while roasting.

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 + truffletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,106 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh truffles: Supply the dominant aroma and earthy flavour that permeates the stuffed turkey.
Fat bacon: Adds fat and savoury flavour to the forcemeat and melts over the breast to keep it moist.
Hen turkey: Forms the main body of the dish, the meat that absorbs the truffle flavour during roasting.

“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.