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Turkey Hash

A savory hash of turkey, potatoes, celery, cream, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkey Hash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the potatoes and celery with enough water to cover in a skillet.

  2. Stew for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the turkey, cream, salt, and pepper to the skillet and bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Mix the flour with a little of the hash liquid to create a smooth paste, then stir the paste back into the skillet.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + celerytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main protein and bulk of the hash.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, softening as they stew to thicken the hash.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the hash liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce when heated.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into a smooth paste. Flour dropped directly into hot liquid clumps, because its starch granules hydrate unevenly. Blending it first with a little cool liquid separates the granules so they disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, celery, cream, flour, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, celery, cream, flour, pepper. 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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