Name: Mock Turkey
Ingredients: 1 fresh unsalted ham (about 14 lbs); Dressing for turkey; 3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped very fine; White cotton (for covering openings)

Why it works: Ham and turkey work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mock Turkey

Ingredients

1 fresh unsalted ham (about 14 lbs)
Dressing for turkey
3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped very fine
White cotton (for covering openings)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Have your butcher remove the bone from the ham.
Prepare a dressing as you would for turkey and mix in the chopped hard boiled eggs.
Fill the ham with the dressing and skewer the opening.
Cover any openings with a piece of white cotton.

Bake and serve

Place the ham in a double pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 5 hours.
Once done, carefully remove the rind from the ham.
Serve hot or cold; it is delicious.

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.

Ham + turkeytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Turkey + eggtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together846 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh unsalted ham: Serves as the large meat base that is stuffed and baked in place of a turkey.
Hard boiled eggs: Add firmness and a mild, rich texture to the dressing once chopped finely.

“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.