Name: Fricassee of Turkey
Ingredients: remains of a turkey; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 cup stock; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; a bunch of sweet herbs; turnips; potato chips

Why it works: Flour and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fricassee of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

Cut the remains of the turkey into pieces.
In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the flour, stirring until combined.
Add the turkey pieces and fry until browned.
Moisten the turkey with stock, then add salt, pepper, and sweet herbs.

Cook the turnips and serve

In another skillet, fry the turnips in butter until golden.
Serve the turnips around the turkey and add potato chips on the side.

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.

Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Adds richness and helps the flour form a smooth base for the sauce.
Flour: Thickens the stock into a sauce once it is combined with the butter and liquid.
Stock: Moistens the turkey and forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Turnips: Add sweetness and golden browning from frying in butter.

Swap the turnip

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

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Shallotfits about as well
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, flour, pepper, potato chip. 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.