Name: Roast Turkey
Ingredients: 1 old turkey; ½ cup corn hoe-cake; 1 onion, chopped; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 pint oysters, well drained; flour; lard; 1 pint water

Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

If using an old turkey, parboil it until tender.
Make a dressing with corn hoe-cake, onion, salt, and pepper.
Add oysters to the dressing and mix well.
Stuff the turkey with the dressing.
Sprinkle the turkey with flour, salt, and pepper.
Dot the turkey with bits of lard.
Place 1 pint of water in the roasting pan and baste the turkey often.

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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,205 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, corn, pepper, oyster, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.