Name: Turkey Stuffing
Ingredients: ½ pound pork sausages or sausage meat; 1 cup freshly grated breadcrumbs; ½ teaspoon thyme or mixed herbs; 1 large beaten egg

Why it works: Pork and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Turkey Stuffing

Ingredients

½ pound pork sausages or sausage meat
1 cup freshly grated breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon thyme or mixed herbs
1 large beaten egg

Directions

Remove the casing from the sausages and crumble the meat into a bowl.
Add the breadcrumbs, thyme or mixed herbs, and beaten egg.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

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.

Pork + thymetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,387 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Thyme + eggtop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).