Name: Boiled Turkey or Chicken
Ingredients: 1 turkey or chicken; a bit of pork; drawn butter (for sauce)

Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Boiled Turkey or Chicken

Ingredients

1 turkey or chicken
a bit of pork
drawn butter (for sauce)

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the turkey or chicken as you would for roasting.
Tie it in a cloth to keep it looking white.
Place the turkey or chicken in cold water.
Use a sharp knife to scrape downwards, starting at the wings without breaking the skin.
Loosen the flesh from the breast, back, and thighs.
Draw the skeleton out by the neck.
Stuff with dressing.
Sew it up.

Boil and serve

Boil a bit of pork with the bird to enhance the flavor.
Boil for three hours.
Serve cold.

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 + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together830 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turkey + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together531 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey or chicken: Forms the main body of the dish, becoming moist and tender as it simmers slowly in water.
Pork: Adds savory, rich flavor to the boiling liquid that seasons the bird as it cooks.
Drawn butter: Provides a rich, fatty sauce that adds moisture and flavor to the cold meat.

“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.