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Turkey Bone Soup

A hearty soup made from turkey bones, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, corn, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkey Bone Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the turkey bones apart with stuffing attached.

  2. Place the bones in a soup pot with 2 quarts of water.

Cook the soup

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, 1 pod of red pepper, 3 medium potatoes, 2 sliced and fried onions, and 1 quart of tomatoes.

  2. Boil for several hours.

  3. Half an hour before serving, add 1 can of corn and 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley.

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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey bones with stuffing
Provide the main meaty flavour and body as the base of the broth.
Potatoes
Break down during long boiling to thicken the soup and add starchy body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the rich broth.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness, deepened by frying before they go in.
Corn
Adds sweetness and texture, added late so it stays tender.

The step that matters

Adding the corn and parsley half an hour before serving. Corn and parsley are added late because prolonged boiling dulls the fresh flavour of herbs and can make corn kernels mushy and bland. Adding them near the end keeps their sweetness and bright colour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, pepper, potato, tomato, corn, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, pepper, potato, tomato, corn, parsley. 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.

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